HMHiniin 




A HISTORICAL SKETCH 

OF THE 

INDEPENDENT 
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 

MEADVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA 
1825-1900 

BY y 

EARL MORSE WILBUR 




MEADVILLE, PA. 
1902 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

JUN. !2 1902 

Copyright entky 
CLASS XXO. No. 



COPY B. 



Copyright 
Iroperftct 
Claim. 



This history is the outgrowth of a historical 
discourse prepared for the seventy-fifth anni- 
versary of the founding of the church, and 
delivered Tuesday evening, October 30, 1900. 
In the preparation of it I have tried to make 
so exhaustive use of all printed or manuscript 
sources discoverable that no one will need to 
work over the subject a second time. Much 
more material and many more details have 
thus been accumulated than could well be 
incorporated into the present narrative ; but 
in order that this additional material, having 
once been unearthed from a great mass of 
newspapers and other sources, might not be 
lost again, I have deposited in the libraries of 
the Meadville Theological School, the Har- 
vard Divinity School, and the American Uni- 
tarian Association copies of this history with 
the addition of full manuscript notes, appen- 
dixes, and references to the original sources. 

E. M. W. 



LIST OF MINISTERS OF THE 
CHURCH 

WITH APPROXIMATE DATES OF SERVICE. 

John Mudge Merrick . . October, 1825 - October, 

1827. 

Washington Gilbert . . December, 1 8 28- April, 1850. 
Ephraim Peabody .... May, 1830-July, 1831. 
George Nichols .... July, 1831-July, 1832. 
Alanson Brigham .... July, 1832-August 24, 1833. 
Amos Dean Wheeler . . Three months early in 1834. 
William Henry Channing, 

supply '. . . . . . . May- August or September, 

1834. 

John Quinby Day . . . ' . October 4, 1834-September 

ii 1837. 

Henry Emmons . . . . December, 1837-August 31 

1843. 

Elihu Goodwin Holland . Late October, 1843-late 

September, 1844. 

Rufus Phineas Stebbins . October 13, 1844-October 1, 

1849. 

Nathaniel Smith Folsom . October 1, 1849-October, 



vi LIST OF MINISTERS 

Coadjutors : 

James Freeman Clarke . September 28, 1851-Octo- 

ber 13, 1852; July 17- 
October 4, 1853. 

Rufus Phineas Stebbins . October, 1852-June, 1853. 
Carlton Albert Staples . July 2, 1854-March 11, 

1857. 

Rush Rhees Shippen, sup- 
ply November or December, 

1857-September 13, 1858. 

Oliver Stearns, morning ] 



January-summer, 1859. 



supply .... 
Nathaniel Smith Folsom, 

evening supply ... J 
Richard Metcalf .... January 30, 1860-May 13, 

1865. * 

John Celivergos Zachos . May 6, 1866-October 4, 

1868. 

Henry Partridge Cutting . March 13, 1870-middle of 

April, 1873. 

Robert Swain Morison . . September 1, 1874-May 10, 

1878. 

James Thompson Bixby . . January 19, 1879-July 15, 

1883. 

William Phillips Tilden, 

supply January i-April 30, 1884 ; 

October 1, 1884- April 30, 
1885. 

Henry Hervey Barber . . January 1, 1886-September 

1, 1890. 



LIST OF MINISTERS 



vii 



Joint Supplies : 

Henry Hervey Barber -j 

Egbert Morse Chesley I September i, 1890- July 1, 
George Rudolph Free- j 1891.. 
man I 



1894. 

William Irvin Lawrance . January 15, 1895-April 1, 

1899. 

Earl Morse Wilbur . . . October 29, 1899- 



Thomas Jefferson Volen- 
tine 



September 13, 1891-Sep- 
tember 4, . 1893. 



James Morris Whiton, sup- 
ply 



October 8, 1893-June 10, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



TT is my purpose in this history to relate 
JL what seems worth remembering of seventy- 
five years of a movement for maintaining and 
promoting the more liberal form of Christianity 
in an environment where it has had many and 
strong obstacles to overcome. It is a history 
not rich in dramatic events, nor in phenomenal 
successes ; yet in the record of these three quar- 
ters of a century of steadfast adherence and 
unselfish devotion to a religious cause, there 
are many passages which, if writ large enough, 
might inspire us who still profess that cause 
with a generous emulation of those that have 
maintained it before us. 

When, on the evening of May 12, 1788, the 
little company of hardy pioneers from North- 
umberland County built their first camp-fire on 
the bank of French Creek, where Meadville now 
stands, they found only the Indians in posses- 



2 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

sion of the region. Fourteen years later, when 
during four weeks in the late summer of 1802 
Mr. H. J. Huidekoper made his first visit to it, 
he found Meadville " a small village containing 
twenty-five or thirty houses, chiefly log ones, 
and a population of about one hundred and 
fifty inhabitants. The country around it was 
chiefly in a state of nature." Meadville was still 
far in the western wilderness ; for on his return 
to Philadelphia Mr. Huidekoper found between 
the Pennsylvania line and Buffalo but three 
small cabins, and at Buffalo itself only perhaps 
a dozen and a half log cabins. " When I arrived 
here, and for years afterwards," he wrote, " there 
was not a single church or house of worship of 
any kind in any of the four northwestern coun- 
ties, and I believe there was none west of the 
Allegheny River." Our little frontier village 
grew, however, steadily if not rapidly ; for in 
i8ioit had 300 inhabitants; in 1820, 540; and 
in 1830, 1 104 ; from which it is fair to presume 
that in 1825, the date at which the history of 
this church really begins, there was a popula- 
tion of something above 800. The completion 
of the turnpike between Philadelphia and Erie 
in 1824, and of the Erie Canal in October, 1825, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 3 

seemed to bring this part of the country into 
very close connection with the East. It was 
boasted that a gentleman had traveled to Troy 
from Erie in only seventy-nine hours, and that 
a merchant had arrived at Meadville from New 
York in the unprecedented time of five and one 
half days ; while the time to Philadelphia had 
been reduced to only six days. 

At the beginning of 1825 Meadville possessed 
ten stores, ten taverns, four mills, a college al- 
ready ten years old, and a church organization 
of even age with the century. The church 
mentioned, the Presbyterian, had dedicated its 
meeting-house in 1820 (on the lot where the 
present church stands) ; and this remained the 
only place for public worship until 1825, when 
the Methodists, who had organized a class early 
in that year, fitted up a room for meetings over 
John Lupher's blacksmith-shop, the building 
still standing at the southeast corner of South 
Main and Arch streets. The Lutherans had 
formed a church in 181 5, but it ceased to exist 
soon after, upon the departure of its minister. 
An Episcopal church was organized January 
25, 1825, but its church building was not dedi- 
cated until three years later. 



4 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

In its general religious tendencies this part 
of the State was markedly conservative, as it 
remains, relatively speaking, even to this day. 
The predominant element among the early set- 
tlers was of Scotch- Irish origin, strong in its 
allegiance to the faith of Calvin and of Knox ; 
and the considerable proportion of German 
settlers was scarcely more favorable to liberal 
Christianity. Such was the little village, and 
such the general environment, into which this 
church came seventy-five years ago, — certainly 
it furnished no bright promise as a field in 
which to propagate Unitarianism. And it is 
but stating the truth in its simplest terms to say 
that, except for the devoted earnestness and the 
material support of one man and his family, 
there is little reason to suppose that there 
would have been a Unitarian church at Mead- 
ville even to this day, or that, had it once been 
founded, it would have been long or strongly 
maintained. 

The man chiefly through whose efforts this 
church was organized and maintained for many 
years was Harm Jan Huidekoper ; and it is 
necessary here to digress a little in order to 
bring his life into connection with the history 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 5 

of the church. Born at Hoogeveen, in the pro- 
vince of Drenthe, Holland, April 3, 1776, he 
came to America at the age of twenty, and set- 
tled at Meadville late in the month of Novem- 
ber, 1804, as agent of the Holland Land Com- 
pany, which had acquired in this part of the 
State about half a million acres of land. At 
the time this church was founded, therefore, he 
was in his fiftieth year, one of the old settlers, 
and a man of wealth and influence in the com- 
munity. He had been brought up a strict Cal- 
vinist, according to the Heidelberg Catechism, 
and early in life had joined the Dutch Re- 
formed church ; and there is no evidence that 
he had either seriously questioned its main 
teachings, or, on the other hand, had made 
them independently his own. When, however, 
he found his family of five children growing up 
about him, and realized that he was responsible 
for their religious instruction, it became a mat- 
ter of serious concern with him what he should 
teach them. At about this period, in the au- 
tumn of 1823, he listened to a sermon preached 
by the Rev. John Campbell of Pittsburg at the 
dedication of the new Unitarian church there, 
which marked an epoch in his experience, and 



6 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



caused him to examine the foundations of his 
religious belief. Finding it impossible longer 
to accept blindly the faith of his youth, and be- 
ing ever a man of independent mind, he now 
applied himself earnestly to an unbiased study 
of the New Testament. That he might know 
what to teach his children upon what he re- 
garded as the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, 
he read the New Testament through again and 
again, and wrote out all the passages bearing 
on each of those doctrines. From a compari- 
son of these he drew his own conclusions, and, 
to use his own words, " soon acquired clear and 
definite notions as to all the leading doctrines 
of the Christian religion." 

The result was the reverse of what he had per- 
haps anticipated. Instead of having his early 
faith confirmed, he became fully convinced that 
the Bible does not teach the doctrines of the 
Trinity, the total depravity of all men, or the 
vicarious atonement of Christ. Without ever 
having read a Unitarian book, or being familiar 
with Unitarian teachings, he had become a 
Unitarian by his independent study of the 
Scriptures ; and it was not until now that he 
procured a collection of Unitarian works by 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 7 

sending to the East for them. He had for 
more than twenty years attended the Presbyte- 
rian church with his family, had been one of 
its most liberal supporters, and had contrib- 
uted a generous share toward the erection of 
its meeting-house. But the zeal of a new con- 
vert now possessed him, and he could not keep 
his liberal convictions to himself. He became 
an earnest propagandist, and in conversations 
and discussions by the way, and through the 
circulation of tracts and books, he embraced 
every opportunity that he found or could make, 
to spread his new faith among his neighbors. 1 
His duty to his own children, too, was now 
made clear. He could not suffer them longer 
to be taught the religious doctrines that they 
were sure to learn at the Presbyterian church 
and Sunday-school. In seeking for tutors, 
therefore, to conduct their education at home, 
he sent to New England and engaged young 
men of the Unitarian faith, usually graduates 
of Harvard College or the Harvard Divinity 

1 He was agent for the tracts of the American Unitarian 
Association in 1830, and at an early date had formed a tract 
association with ten members. An " Association Auxiliary to 
the A. U. A." existed here in 1832 or earlier. 



8 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



School, and candidates for the ministry, who 
were employed with reference to their willing- 
ness to hold religious services while here. 1 It 
was thus that the first Unitarian preachers were 
brought to Meadville ; and as they were usually 
willing to devote only a year or two to the 
office of tutor, there was a rapid change of 
preachers during the first few years of the 
church's history. 

I have said that it was mainly through Mr. 
Huidekoper's efforts that the church was or- 
ganized and for a long time maintained ; but 
no one family can make a church. There were 
other devoted supporters of the new cause, both 
with their substance and with their influence. 
There was Miss Margaret Shippen, who came 

1 Benjamin Bakewell of Pittsburg, writing to Mr. Huidekoper 
in 1824, says, " Mr. Ware [the Rev. William Ware, then of New 
York City, who had written to the Rev. Mr. Campbell of 
Pittsburg] wishes to know what prospect there would be for 
a young minister of the persuasion in western Pennsylvania. 
I suggested to Mr. Campbell that perhaps a clever young man 
who would undertake the education of a select number of boys, 
and conduct the worship on the Sabbath, might possibly meet 
with encouragement in Meadville. What think you of it ? " It 
is perhaps from this letter that Mr. Huidekoper got his idea. 
The school was held in the north wing of " Pomona Hall," Mr. 
Huidekoper's residence in Water street, where that of his son 
Frederic has stood in more recent years. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 9 

to Meadville in 1825, already a zealous Unita- 
rian, from Mr. Furness's church at Philadelphia, 
and so far as I have been able to learn, the only 
one of the first adherents of this church who 
had been trained in Unitarianism elsewhere; 
and not long afterward there came over from 
the Episcopal fold the wife and family of her 
brother, Judge Henry Shippen. There was 
Arthur Cullum, merchant, and his wife, whose 
children six presently came to be among the 
most stanch and influential members of the 
church. There was Judge Stephen Barlow, 
and Octavius Hastings, merchant, and Livy 
Barton, hotel-keeper, and John Beach and Bailey 
S. Courtney and Isaac Cooper and their fami- 
lies, and William P. Shattuck ; not to mention 
many more, who must have been among the 
first to hear our gospel preached at Meadville. 

The first preacher of Unitarianism here was 
John Mudge Merrick, a young man who had 
not yet finished his studies at Bowdoin College, 
and who was tutor in Mr. Huidekoper's family 
from October, 1825, to October, 1827. His first 
service, the date of which I have been unable 
to discover, though . it was presumably soon 
after his arrival, was held in the Presbyterian 



io HISTORICAL SKETCH 

church in Liberty street. Mr. Merrick generally 
preached fortnightly, sometimes upstairs in the 
old log Court House standing at the northwest 
corner of the Public Square and Cherry Alley, 
where Haskins and McClintock's law office now 
stands, sometimes in the new Court House, but 
usually in the Presbyterian church at 3 o'clock 
in the afternoon. There was no organ, even in 
the church, and the services must have been 
exceedingly simple ; but letters written at the 
time show that there was no lack of warm fervor 
and lively interest. Sunday evenings the little 
flock used to gather at Pomona Hall and sing 
hymns together under Mr. Merrick's leadership. 

Mr. Merrick's preaching was of a high order, 
practical and earnest, extremely simple and di- 
rect. He was a thorough scholar of large and 
varied acquirements, and a faithful minister, con- 
servative in theology, and active in the cause 
of education and of temperance. He remained 
here two years in his double office, and then 
withdrew in order to devote himself exclusively 
to the work of the ministry. He afterwards 
held pastorates at Hardwick, Sandwich, and 
Walpole, Mass., — at the latter place for nearly 
thirty years, where president George L. Cary 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



ii 



studied theology under his direction. He died 
at Charlestown, N. H., where he was minister, 
March 20, 1 871, at the age of nearly sixty-seven 
years. 

Let us now consider the way in which the 
new preaching was received. It might have 
been expected, perhaps, that the people of 
Meadville would be predisposed to give it a 
kindly reception; for Allegheny College, an 
institution of which Meadville was and is justly 
proud, had already had rich experience of Uni- 
tarian benefactions. The college had been 
founded in 181 5 (chartered 18 17); and when 
its first president, the Rev. Timothy Alden, 
went East to solicit funds for it, the first sub- 
scription that he received was one from Presi- 
dent John Adams, while among the names that 
followed were those of Channing, Frothingham, 
Lowell, Ticknor, Greenleaf, Parkman, Thayer, 
Worcester, and Bancroft, all well known Uni- 
tarian names; and among local subscribers, 
Mr. Huidekoper had been one of the most gen- 
erous. Moreover, the Rev. William Bentley, 
D. D., of Salem, Mass. — who at his death in 
18 1 9 bequeathed to the young college an im- 
portant part of his library, valued at $3000, and 



12 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



known to be one of the most valuable private 
collections in the country, and in whose honor 
its first building, finished in 1819, was named 
Bentley Hall — was a prominent Unitarian 
clergyman. These gentlemen in the East, 
however, had given not as Unitarians but as 
Christian philanthropists, and without seeking 
to influence the religious tendency of the new 
college. It may be doubted, indeed, whether 
many here even knew their religious affiliations. 

At all events, even before Mr. Merrick's ar- 
rival, Mr. Huidekoper's known acceptance and 
advocacy of Unitarian beliefs had roused such 
a storm of opposition as to-day can hardly be 
imagined. Not to mention the controversies 
which followed would be to omit a significant 
passage in the history I have to relate. Happily, 
however, we can speak calmly -of these things 
now, and I trust without offense to any, since 
we are not to judge them by the standards of 
the end of the nineteenth century, and because 
the rigors of the theological climate have so 
wonderfully softened in the course of seventy- 
five years. 

It was not a period when, at least outside of 
New England, liberal views in religion were 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 13 

looked upon by those who opposed them with 
the least tolerance. To illustrate the spirit of 
the time, I may cite some characteristic exam- 
ples of the way in which our dangerous heresies 
were received. In 1827 a leading Baptist min- 
ister in New York City said in a sermon, " Of 
all people I ever knew or read of, the Socinians 
I think are the worst ; and if there is such a 
place as the hottest hell, I do think they richly 
deserve it, and no doubt will have it." In his 
Christmas sermon in 1824, a Roman Catholic 
clergyman named McGuire, at Pittsburg, took 
occasion to attack Unitarians, speaking of them 
as "infidels, worse than devils . . . lost not 
only to every sense of religion, but also of 
shame," and devoted them to eternal damnation. 
He was answered by a Unitarian of English 
origin, who bore much the same relation to the 
young Pittsburg church that Mr. Huidekoper 
bore to that at Meadville, Mr. Benjamin Bake- 
well; 1 and since the Pittsburg newspapers would 
not insert communications answering direct at- 
tacks upon Unitarians, Mr. Bake well was com- 
pelled to publish his reply as a tract. 

1 Founder of the flint-glass industry at Pittsburg, and a most 
devoted Unitarian. 



14 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

It is hardly to be supposed that at Meadville 
at that period, the disposition of the defenders 
of the faith toward teachings deemed so danger- 
ous was essentially different from what it was 
elsewhere. The Rev. John Van Liew, indeed, 
minister of the Presbyterian church from 182 1 
to 1824, while strongly orthodox in his personal 
convictions, was a man of a generous tolerance 
unusual at that day. But during the pastorate 
of his successor, the Rev. Wells Bushnell, from 
1826 to 1833, and in the intervening two years 
when the Rev. Timothy Alden often supplied 
the pulpit, the Unitarians — I quote from a 
local newspaper of the time — " were made the 
object of constant and unrelenting vituperation. 
It was charged that they were not Christians ; 
that they were enemies to God and to Christ ; 
that they denied the Lord who bought them ; 
and that they wished to dethrone Christ, and to 
tear the crown of laurel from his brow." The 
Erie Presbytery voted that all that attended the 
worship of Unitarians or Universalists should 
thereby become amenable to church censure. 
An aged member of the church at Meadville 
was repeatedly threatened by his minister with 
expulsion, for expressing the opinion that Uni- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 15 

tarians and Universalists were Christians ; and 
an attempt was made to prevent the ringing of 
the church bell to call the people together to 
hear a Universalist preacher. Such was the 
opposition and persecution which those here 
that first adhered to Unitarianism had to meet. 

The files of the " Crawford Messenger," the 
local newspaper of that period, afford an inter- 
esting view of forms of controversy now long 
obsolete. The most notable of these contro- 
versies, waged not without heat on both sides, 
and with some use of personalities and invec- 
tive, fills column after column during nearly 
nine months ; and when the editor's patient 
indulgence was finally exhausted, it was still 
continued as a pamphlet war. We can all afford 
to smile over these things now ; but then it was 
no smiling matter for any one concerned. And 
it is worth while to have dwelt upon them here, 
in order the better to appreciate through what 
storm and stress our church first won for itself 
a place in this community. The ultimate re- 
sult of these controversies was favorable, rather 
than otherwise, to the infant church. There 
was a lively leaven of theological unrest at work 
throughout the whole western country at this 



i6 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



time. All men were set to thinking; and of 
those that thought, not a few became persuaded 
that the things for which this church was 
founded were true. 

The church thus established was the first 
Unitarian church west of the Alleghanies that 
has maintained an unbroken existence down to 
the present day, and one of the first in the 
country to be from its foundation avowedly 
Unitarian. 1 Meadville did not long remain the 
western outpost of Unitarianism, however ; for 
in 1830 churches were founded at Cincinnati 
and Louisville, in 1831 at Buffalo, in 1834 at 
St. Louis, and in 1836 at Chicago. 

Difficulty must have been experienced in 
filling Mr. Merrick's place, for there were no 
services held for a year after his departure. 
There was a tutor in Mr. Huidekoper's family, 

1 A large number of the original Congregational churches in 
New England, however, had already accepted Unitarian doc- 
trines, and had been disfellowshiped for it by the orthodox. 
Joseph Priestley had established Unitarian churches at North- 
umberland and at Philadelphia in 1794 and 1796 respectively, 
and in 1820 the Rev. John Campbell had founded a Unitarian 
church at Pittsburg, which led a troubled existence until about 
1865, when its activities ceased. It was revived in 1889 as an 
entirely new movement. A Unitarian church was dedicated at 
Harrisburg Feb. 4, 1829. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 17 

indeed, a thoughtful boy of sixteen or seventeen, 
fresh from Harvard College, who afterward 
became known to fame as Andrew Preston 
Peabody, one of the best known and best be- 
loved ministers of the century. But he had 
not as -yet even begun his studies in theology, 
and did not preach at all while here. He was 
only the first of several, later among the most 
distinguished ministers of the denomination, 
who had early experience at Meadville. 

The second preacher was Washington Gil- 
bert, a graduate of Williams College and of the 
Harvard Divinity School, who arrived here in 
December, 1828. Like Mr. Merrick, he usu- 
ally preached every two weeks. At first the ser- 
vices continued to be held in the Presbyterian 
church, at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, 
by virtue of a clause in the original articles of 
that church's association, which provided that 
the meeting-house, when not occupied by the 
society usually worshiping there, should be 
open to any Christian society for the purpose 
of public worship. But it is more than doubt- 
ful whether Unitarianism was among the forms 
of Christianity that had been contemplated. 
At all events, not long after Mr. Gilbert's ar- 



18 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

rival the storm of controversy broke out afresh. 
A project was discussed for excluding Unitari- 
ans from the use of the church. On one 
Thanksgiving day they were forbidden to use 
the church, though unoccupied, for a Thanks- 
giving service; but an adventurous young 
man climbed into the window, and opened and 
lighted the church, so that service was held that 
evening. At another time the sexton hid the 
candles in the foot-stoves, that the Unitarians 
might not be able to light the church for their 
service. In short, the situation became so ag- 
gravated as to be no longer tolerable. Early in 
1830, therefore, we find the Unitarians already 
holding their services in the new Court House 
at half past ten or eleven o'clock in the morn- 
ing. Clinton Cullum, then a lad not yet in his 
teens, used to carry the pulpit Bible down to 
these services from his father's house. 

During Mr. Gilbert's ministry an important 
step toward the permanence of the movement 
was taken in the adoption of a constitution, 
under which the church was formally organized 
May 21, 1829. This first constitution was a 
plain business document. Its first article, en- 
titled " Fundamental Principles," provided that 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 19 

" every one who believes in the existence of one 
God, and in the divine mission of Jesus of Naz- 
areth as the Christ, the Son of God, is admis- 
sible as a member of this church ; and no other 
profession of faith than that contained in this 
simple creed shall at any time be imposed as a 
condition of church membership. Every per- 
son," the constitution continues, " possesses the 
inalienable right of judging for himself in mat- 
ters of religion, and no one has the right to call 
another to account for any religious opinions 
which he may hold." Members became such 
by subscribing the constitution ; but only con- 
tributors were permitted to vote in the choice 
of a minister. 

At the present day no Unitarian church 
within my knowledge so much as dreams of 
imposing a creed, however simple or liberal, as 
a test of membership. It has long since be- 
come an axiom that our basis of union is not 
identical belief, but common purpose ; and that 
" every person possesses the inalienable right 
of judging for himself " concerning fundamen- 
tal doctrines no less than minor ones. And 
the present history of our body abundantly 
demonstrates that from this absolute mental 



20 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



freedom there results not a weakening diversity, 
but a remarkable unity of spirit in the bond of 
peace, which has tended to increase in direct 
proportion as doctrinal limitations have been 
discarded. But in 1829, and for long afterward, 
such freedom would have been thought not only 
dangerous but fatal. The Unitarian churches, 
as a rule, had their creeds no less than the or- 
thodox ; the difference between them was that, 
whereas the latter were generally elaborate and 
conservative, the former were generally liberal 
and simple. For their time, the conditions of 
admission to the Meadville church were rather 
mild. 

Members might be expelled only for gross 
immorality, and after full trial. Two elders 1 
were, with the minister, to attend to the spirit- 
ual, and a Committee of Management of three 
to the temporal affairs of the church. It is sig- 
nificant that the double organization of church 
and society, which was all but universal in New 
England, was not introduced here. There was 
but one organization, and that the church ; and 

1 A Presbyterian feature. Mr. Huidekoper's whole ecclesias- 
tical experience in Holland and in America had been in churches 
of the Presbyterian polity. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



21 



its basis of membership, as we have seen, was a 
religious one. Significant also was the name, 
" The Independent Congregational Church of 
Meadville." For, although its members were 
in belief avowedly Unitarian, that word had 
been used but little as the name of a denomi- 
nation. Channing's Baltimore sermon, which 
first clearly defined to Unitarians their distinc- 
tive position, was not preached until 1819; and 
the American Unitarian Association, the first 
attempt to give liberal Christianity definite co- 
herence, was not founded until 1825. There 
were not half a dozen churches in America that 
had taken " Unitarian " as a denominational 
name ; 1 for, although there was abundant dis- 
position to accept a new theology, there was lit- 
tle to form a new sect. The constitution was 
originally subscribed by thirty-two persons, and 
served until 1840, when, as we shall see, it was 
thoroughly revised. 

Mr. Gilbert, though not a brilliant preacher, 
was distinguished for his practical sense, was in- 

1 So obnoxious was the name that when the church at Phila- 
delphia adopted it in 1813, the most advanced men of our faith 
at Boston, the fountain head of American Unitarianism, remon- 
strated with their brethren at Philadelphia, and counseled them 
to abstain from the use of so unpopular a designation. 



22 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



dustrious and faithful, genuine and sincere, and 
entirely devoted to his calling. He left Mead- 
ville in April, 1830, and returned to New Eng- 
land. He held pastorates at Harvard, West 
Newton, and Lincoln, Mass., and died at West 
Newton, January 5, 1879, aged seventy-eight 
years. In May, 1830, Mr. Gilbert was suc- 
ceeded by Ephraim Peabody, a graduate of 
Bowdoin College and of the Harvard Divinity 
School, who not only preached every Sunday 
in the Court House, but often held services in 
neighboring schoolhouses, especially in what is 
now known as the Cotton schoolhouse, west of 
town, or on pleasant afternoons in the maple 
grove near by, and sometimes in the Methodist 
church out on the State road, east of town* 

During his year's stay here, Mr. Peabody, 
with the purpose of making the Unitarian faith 
better known to the people of this " benighted 
section, of our country," as a correspondent of 
the " Christian Register " called it, and of de- 
fending it against the attacks that continued to 
be made upon it, projected a small monthly 
periodical to be published at Meadville, and 
called the " Unitarian Essayist," of which he 
was to be the editor. It was published for two 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 23 

years from January, 183 1 ; and as Mr. Peabody 
soon removed from town, it was afterward ed- 
ited, and in great part written, by Mr. Huide- 
koper himself. A paragraph from the first edi- 
torial gives us an idea of the opposition which 
the church had still to meet. " But in this part 
of the country our opinions, though perpetually 
spoken against, are to the great majority abso- 
lutely unknown, or known only through the 
medium of prejudice. The consequence is that 
we are subjected to every kind of unjust judg- 
ment and misrepresentation. There is hardly 
an error among those which we esteem the 
most dangerous, which we are not sometimes 
accused of believing, nor a truth which we value 
as among the most precious truths of revela- 
tion, which we are not accused of rejecting. . . . 
We are made the subjects of ceaseless denun- 
ciation and anathema ; we are denied even the 
name of Christians ; men are warned from our 
books and our places of worship as from the 
contamination of a brothel, and the doors of our 
churches are described as the entrances to 
hell." 1 

1 The Essayist contains (ii. 31) a noteworthy bit of contro- 
versy, in an open letter of the editor to the Rev. John W. James, 



24 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



The two years' numbers of the " Essayist " 
make a small duodecimo volume of about 340 
pages, and the contents are, in the main, digni- 
fied and scholarly discussions of the chief points 
of Christian doctrine on which Unitarians dif- 
fered from their orthodox opponents. To this 
day, few more effective discussions of the points 
at issue have been published. The subscription 
list contained some 340 names, of which eighty- 
five were from Meadville. Read and discussed 
as thoroughly as such things were in those 
days, the " Essayist " must have had a very im- 
portant influence in this community in persuad- 
ing such as were open to persuasion, as well as 
in confirming the faith of those already Unita- 
rians. Its place was in a measure filled after- 
ward by the " Western Messenger," published 
at Cincinnati and at Louisville, 1836-41, to 
which Mr. Huidekoper contributed twenty- 
eight articles, mostly on theological subjects. 

rector of the Episcopal church, respecting- an aggravated case 
of the way in which Unitarians were sometimes treated. Mr. 
James had attempted to deprive a young lady of her liveli- 
hood for no other reason than that she was a Unitarian. Her 
name, not mentioned in the letter, was Miss Jerusha Dewey, sis- 
ter of the Rev. Orville Dewey. She had come to Meadville to 
establish a school for " young females," and joined the church 
October 2, 1831. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 25 

The initial work of controversy, unpleasant, 
but unavoidable in the circumstances, was now 
pretty well accomplished ; although, as we shall 
see, it was later revived from time to time. The 
young church, having established itself in the 
community, had peace for a season, and its 
neighbors accommodated themselves to it as 
best they could. Mr. Peabody was an engaging 
preacher, an estimable pastor, and a brilliant 
writer, scholarly, and singularly modest. He 
was much beloved at Meadville, but, finding his 
double duties as teacher and minister too ardu- 
ous, he left in July, 1831, to become minister 
of the church at Cincinnati which had been 
formed the previous year. He went later to the 
church at New Bedford, Mass., and became at 
length the distinguished minister of King's 
Chapel in Boston, where he died November 28, 
1856, at the early age of forty-nine, universally 
loved and mourned. 

The fourth minister of the church was the 
Rev. George Nichols, a graduate of Harvard 
College, who arrived fresh from the Divinity 
School in July, 1831. Up to this time, none 
of the ministers of the church had been an or- 
dained clergyman, and the members had there- 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

fore been deprived of the ordinances of Baptism 
and the Lord's Supper. 1 To supply this want, 
Mr. Nichols was, at the request of the church, 
ordained as an evangelist at Cambridge just 
before his departure for Meadville. This church 
was Mr. Nichols's only charge. He left Mead- 
ville in July, 1832, and afterward became liter- 
ary critic for the University Press at Cambridge, 
Mass., where he died July 6, 1882, aged seventy- 
three years. It was during his ministry, in the 
winter of 1831-32, that Miss Margaret Shippen 
— " Aunt Shippen," as she was affectionately 
called — organized the first Sunday-school in 
her own home, which stood where the present 
minister's house stands, and was afterward 
given to the church for a parsonage. The 
school at first met afternoons in the north room 
of the building, but later in the Court House 
before the morning service. The school was but 

1 In 1 83 1, Benjamin Bake well of Pittsburg presented the 
church a glass loving-cup of his own manufacture. A single 
cup of this kind used to be passed round the table to the com- 
municants under the Rev. John Campbell's ministry at Pitts- 
burg ; and the same practice was followed at the Lord's Supper 
when observed here, while the members of the church sat about 
the long lawyers' table within the bar in the Court House. The 
cup is still in existence. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 27 

small, and its early teachers were chiefly mem- 
bers of the Huidekoper, Cullum, and Shippen 
families. 

Mr. Nichols was immediately succeeded by 
his classmate, the Rev. Alanson Brigham, who, 
like his predecessor, was a graduate of Harvard 
College, and was ordained in Boston before 
coming west. He was a man of unusual mod- 
esty of deportment, urbane in manner, amia- 
ble in disposition, with a strong sense of duty, 
and had won reputation as a scholar. He en- 
deared himself deeply to the people. After 
one year's preaching here, he went east for a 
summer vacation, and had returned to teach 
one year more in Mr. Huidekoper's family, after 
which he was to devote himself exclusively to 
the care of the church. But he fell ill of ty- 
phus fever, and died at Pomona Hall August 
24, 1833, aged thirty years. His remains, at 
first buried in the grounds at Pomona, now lie 
in the Theological School lot in Greendale 
Cemetery. 1 

1 The rector of the Episcopal church declined to attend Mr. 
Brigham's funeral, on the ground that he could not recognize 
him as a Christian. The Methodist minister was then applied 
to, and conducted the funeral services. 



28 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



After Mr. Brigham's death there was for 
some time no regular preacher. The members 
of the church, however, continued to meet reg- 
ularly as usual, one of them reading a sermon ; 
and this custom has ever since been followed in 
the absence of a minister. During the ensuing 
year, the tutor at Mr. Huidekoper's, and the 
last of their number, was John Sullivan D wight ; 
but, although he afterward entered the Unita- 
rian ministry (subsequently becoming one of 
the Brook Farm company, and a distinguished 
musical critic), he did not preach while here. 

From the time of its organization, the church 
had continued to grow rapidly. The congre- 
gation now numbered nearly two hundred, 
" among whom are to be reckoned (not to speak 
invidiously)," says a correspondent of the time, 
" a full proportion, at the least, of the truly intel- 
ligent and devout of the village." It was there- 
fore determined to employ the exclusive services 
of a minister for the church ; and Henry Au- 
gustus Walker, just graduated from the Har- 
vard Divinity School, who had happened to pass 
through Meadville and to preach for Mr. Brig- 
ham during his last illness, was called ; but the 
call, which there was at one time reason to 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 29 

believe would be accepted, was finally declined. 
Efforts continued to be made to find a suitable 
person, but none was found until the autumn 
of the next year ; meanwhile there were two 
temporary supplies. Amos Dean Wheeler, 
formerly of Salem, Mass., was engaged as suc- 
cessor to Mr. Brigham, at a salary of $500. He 
preached here for three months early in 1834, 
but for some reason did not remain longer. He 
was a man modest and grave, deeply devout, 
and of blameless life ; not a brilliant preacher, 
but an indefatigable worker, of large natural 
endowments and fine scholarship. His subse- 
quent ministry was spent in the State of Maine, 
where he died, at Topsham, June 30, 1876, aged 
seventy-two. 

After him William Henry Channing (nephew 
of William Ellery Channing) preached from 
May to August or September, 1834. Naturally 
a mystic, somewhat erratic in his course, he was 
devoted to every sort of philanthropy and re- 
form. In the pulpit he was deeply spiritual, 
both scholarly and eloquent. He became much 
beloved during his short stay here, and was a 
man of perhaps as brilliant talents, and became 
subsequently as celebrated, as any of all those 



30 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

that have ministered to this church. He held 
numerous important parishes in this country 
and in England, and died in London, Decem- 
ber 23, 1884, at the age of seventy-four. 

After this year of broken ministry, the Rev. 
John Quinby Day, a graduate of Bowdoin Col- 
lege and of the Harvard Divinity School, who 
had been ordained at Portland, Maine, the month 
previous, arrived here at the beginning of Oc- 
tober, 1834. After a three months' trial, the 
church extended to him a formal call, which he 
accepted, becoming its first minister regularly 
settled and devoting his entire time to its ser- 
vice, at a salary of $500. The earlier preachers 
had been paid a small salary in addition to what 
they received as tutors. Among the events of 
Mr. Day's ministry was the visit of Miss Harriet 
Martineau to Meadville; and a minute in the 
scanty church records of the time reads thus : 
" 1834, Nov. 2. Sacrament administered. Har- 
riet Martineau of London communed with 
us." 1 

1 See her Autobiography, London, 1877, iii. 118, 119, for an 
entry from her journal dated Meadville, October 29, 1834. She 
was the guest of Mr. Huidekoper. " The C's " and the " Mr. 
D." referred to were no doubt the Cullums and Mr. Day. Her 
visit was from October 29 or earlier, to November 2, or later. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 31 

The great achievement of Mr. Day's ministry 
was the building and dedication of the church 
in 1836. Plans looking toward it had been ini- 
tiated as long previously as 1829, the year in 
which the church was organized. In that year 
a circular letter, signed by the leading members 
of the church, had been sent to the ministers 
of most of the New England churches, request- 
ing their aid in building a house of worship. 
The Rev. Mr. Merrick, writing to the " Christian 
Register " to second this appeal, had said (for- 
getting the church at Pittsburg) that this church 
was the " only one founded on our principles in 
the Western country ; and from the situation 
- and rapid growth of the town, is one that pro- 
mises to be extensively useful in propagating 
liberal sentiments through those regions." He 
spoke of the society as " comparatively poor," but 
" composed of active and zealous individuals." 

The wise forethought of Miss Margaret Ship- 
pen had secured a favorable location for the 
church. In 1830 she had bought the three 
lots comprising the present church property 
at the southeast corner of the Public Square. 
They had been a part of the original David 
Mead estate, and had later come into the pos- 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

session of Crawford County. The county com- 
missioners had conveyed them in 1830 to John 
E. Smith and David McFadden, in part pay- 
ment for building the new Court House ; and 
they, in turn, to Miss Shippen. On August 20, 
1835, Miss Shippen conveyed a portion of this 
property, measuring 88 feet on Chestnut street, 
and 105 feet on Hundred-foot street, as Main 
street was then called, to five trustees 1 for the 
benefit of the church ; the lot being in reality 
the joint gift of herself and H. J. Huidekoper. 
In the following month active steps were taken 
for the erection of a church building, which 
Edward Derby built for the contract price of 
$3500. The most of the money necessary was 
subscribed here ; though substantial gifts came 
from members of the church at Philadelphia. 
It does not appear that anything resulted from 
the appeal to the churches in New England. 

The plans for the church, which were rigidly 
adhered to, were drawn by Captain (later Gen- 
eral) George W. Cullum, U. S. A., a son of the 
church, who, by the way, also drew the plans 
for a much more famous structure in Fort 



1 The trustees were H. J. Huidekoper, Octavius Hastings, 
Horace Cullum, Alfred Huidekoper, and Edgar Huidekoper. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 33 

Sumter. The Doric style of architecture, to 
which it strictly conforms even in details, was 
much in vogue for churches during that pe- 
riod ; 1 and the plans for this church closely 
resembled those of the Unitarian church at 
Philadelphia. Externally the church was , of 
red brick, with white pillars, cornice, and pedi- 
ment. 2 In the interior the walls were of a pale 
gray, and the ceiling flat and plain. The pews, 
all of which were furnished with doors, were 
painted white as at present ; and the seats were, 
five inches higher and two or three inches nar- 
rower than they are now, so that they were 
most uncomfortable, and footstools were indis- 
pensable to all but the tallest persons. The 
minister's seat, in the alcove where the organ 
now is, was complained of by two generations 
of preachers as being a very purgatory on a hot 
day in summer. The pulpit was several steps 
higher than it is to-day. The church was lighted 
from a chandelier of whale-oil lamps hung in 

1 A writer in the Christian Register (November 15, 1845) 
quotes a feeling then somewhat current, that " Gothic architecture 
belongs to the Trinitarian Church, and the severe majesty of the 
Doric would better suit the simplicity of the Unitarian faith." 

2 The church was subsequently painted gray ; and in 1892 it 
was repainted red, with brown pillars, cornice, and pediment. 



34 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

the center of the room and by other hanging 
lamps. The pulpit lamps were the gift of 
Benjamin Bakewell of Pittsburg. Heat was 
furnished by two large wood-stoves standing in 
the rear corners of the room, which was entered 
by a single center door. In the gallery there 
was a pipe organ which had been presented by 
the young Unitarian church at Buffalo. The 
singing was furnished by a voluntary chorus 
choir, and the hymn-book was Greenwood's 
" Collection of Psalms and Hymns for Chris- 
tian Worship." 

Five days before the dedication of the church, 
the pews were auctioned off to the subscribers 
to the building fund, as shareholders, and to 
others; and on Saturday, August 20, 1836, at 
1 1 o'clock, this church, the second Unitarian 
one in western Pennsylvania, which was said 
to be, as it has always been, " much admired 
for its .chaste style and classic symmetry," was 
" dedicated to the service of the God and Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ." The order of the 
service was as follows : — 

1. Organ Voluntary. 

2. Prayer by the Rev. James Thurston, Cam- 

bridge, Mass. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 35 

3. Reading of the Scriptures, Mr. Thurston. 

4. Anthem, " Denmark." 

5. Dedicatory Prayer by the Pastor, the Rev. 

John Q. Day. 

6. Dedicatory Hymn, " O bow thine ear, 
. Eternal One." 

7. Sermon, by the Rev. Henry Coleman, 

Deerfield, Mass.; text, Eph. ii. 18-22. 1 

8. Hymn. 

9. Concluding Prayer, by the Rev. Ephraim 

Peabody, Cincinnati, O. 

10. Hymn, " Lord, dismiss us with thy bless- 
ing." 

11. Benediction. 

The church thus so firmly established and 
well housed had now some sixty members, in- 
cluding a goodly number of persons of influence 
in the village. Nor is it to be supposed that 
in promoting its prosperity thus far the women 
of it had had any mean part. From the begin- 
nings of the church they had met in each other's 
houses to sew on summer afternoons, while 
in the winter they sewed after tea in the even- 

1 The sermon was an excellent presentation of the position 
the church was founded to maintain. It was published in pam- 
phlet form, by request of the church. 



36 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

ing, when the men of the church usually 
joined them. At a later date suppers were 
served at these meetings, while a tradition was 
established from the first, which has ever since 
been adhered to : not to sew for profit, but only 
for the poor. 

Meadville had now grown to have a popula- 
tion of about 1 300 ; and, in addition to the sin- 
gle Presbyterian church which we found at the 
beginning of our history, the Episcopalians had 
built one in 1828, the Baptists in 1833, the 
Methodists and Cumberland Presbyterians in 
1834, thus making this church building the 
sixth in order. 

The church reached and maintained a very 
prosperous condition under Mr. Day's ministry. 
While he was well liked in other respects, how- 
ever, he was not considered particularly success- 
ful as a preacher ; and, realizing his limitations 
in this direction, he resigned September 1, 1837, 
and went away, bearing with him the good-will 
of the parish. He sought no other charge, but 
became a teacher at Medford, Mass., and event- 
ually an editor at Portland, Maine, where he 
died, March 5, 1884, a g e d seventy-four years. 

Mr. Day was succeeded by the Rev. Henry 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 37 

Emmons, from Nashua, N. H., who arrived 
here in December, 1837, and served at a salary 
of $700, a higher sum than had heretofore been 
paid. 

During Mr. Emmons's ministry (May 10, 
1840) a new constitution was adopted for the 
church in place of the original one. It was 
considerably more strict in form and details 
than the first one, and appears to have been 
copied after one of the constitutions then com- 
mon in New England ; for it introduced, in a 
veiled form, the distinction between members 
of the church and members of the society. It 
was also required that the names of new mem- 
bers be previously presented in writing and 
voted upon by the church ; and that those that 
joined should assent to a rather elaborate cove- 
nant, containing a creed less simple than that 
at first required. Although all the members of 
the church signed this constitution, yet some of 
its provisions were found so embarrassing in 
practice that they were never actually observed ; 
and after four years a second revision was made. 

Mr. Emmons, writing to the " Christian Re- 
gister " in 1842, says, "We are insulated — 
have no intercourse with other parishes ; never, 



38 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

or very seldom, see even a traveling brother 
minister, or missionary. We are surrounded 
by opponents active and efficient, envious of 
each other, yet combined against us. . . . Not- 
withstanding, we hold our own, and gradually 
increase. Several families have joined them- 
selves to us during the last year. And what 
increase we have is from intelligent and firm 
materials. ... Our society sustains itself well 
and vigorously, but has as much to labor under 
in doing this, as respects pecuniary means, as 
it can well bear." He also speaks of the need 
of tracts for distribution, and a large number of 
them was accordingly sent him by the Book 
and Pamphlet Society at Boston. 

The period of Mr. Emmons's ministry here 
was one of vigorous missionary activity on the 
part of the church. During the most of the 
year there were morning and evening services 
in the church, as there had been under Mr. 
Day ; and in the summer season services were 
held more or less frequently in the surrounding 
country, within a radius of from five to twelve 
miles ; and at several of these preaching stations 
Sunday-schools were gathered. In the autumn 
of 1 84 1 a school of some thirty or forty mem- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 39 

bers was thus formed at a schoolhouse in what 
was then Vernon (now Union) township, about 
three and a half miles south of Meadville on the 
Mercer Pike, and was maintained for about four 
years. The teachers were from the church, and 
in order to take them out to the school on Sun- 
day afternoons Mr. Huidekoper used to send his 
carriage — an old conveyance famous in its time, 
which had been brought from Philadelphia in 
18 1 2, and was the second carriage ever brought 
to Meadville. There being no public school in 
that neighborhood, some of the classes used to 
pursue studies in English as well as to receive 
religious instruction. By the next season the 
attendance at this school, under the stimulus of 
a gift of library books from the Sunday-school 
at Brighton, Mass., had increased to seventy or 
eighty, and many walked three or four miles to 
attend it. In the summer the school was held 
in a grove near by, and preaching often followed 
the lessons. Early in the summer of 1842 an- 
other Sunday-school of fifty scholars was easily 
gathered out on the State Road in Mead town- 
ship, about three miles east of town ; and 
preaching services were also held there. 1 And 

1 The members of another church tried to break up one of 



4 o HISTORICAL SKETCH 

in midsummer of the same year yet another 
school was organized five miles beyond the one 
first mentioned, with some fifty scholars, and 
still another resulted at a greater distance yet. 1 
Aside from the good thus directly accomplished, 
some portion of the church's later membership 
resulted from these early missionary efforts. 

Every year, on the fourth of July, the mem- 
bers of these several Sunday-schools, with their 
near relatives or friends, would meet for their 
annual festival at Pomona Hall. There was a 
bountiful collation spread on great tables under 
the trees on the lawn ; then came a prayer, a 
hymn, and an address ; and afterward all sorts 
of games, a great romp for the children, and last 
of all a supper. Those were famous occasions, 
and they are fondly remembered to this day by 
many whose hair has long since grown gray. 

By this time the feeling of the other churches 
toward the Unitarians seems visibly to have 
softened. In the summer of 1842 our Sunday- 

these schools because it was conducted by Unitarians ; but our 
school was too popular among the country folk to be thus in- 
jured. 

1 At this time or later, perhaps in Mr. Stebbins's ministry, 
there was another school conducted on Dunham's Flats, north- 
west of town. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 41 

school was invited for the first time to join in 
the festivities of the union village Sunday-school 
celebration, from which it had previously been 
excluded. Our scholars attended to the num- 
ber of 230. Late in the autumn of the same 
year, while the Pittsburg Presbyterian Synod 
was sitting here, two of the ministers attend- 
ing it, the Rev. Mr. Carr and the Rev. Mr. 
Lee, accepted invitations to occupy our pul- 
pit. " The reign of bigotry is passing away," 
wrote a correspondent to one of the papers, 
commenting on this significant occurrence. 

Mr. Emmons was a man of energy in his 
profession, a " Channing Unitarian," a preacher 
simple and earnest, a good pastor, and a man 
of gentle and kindly spirit. His ministry here 
was harmonious and prosperous. In 1843, 
however, hard times made it necessary to re- 
duce his salary, and feeling it to be no longer 
sufficient, he resigned, and went away at the 
end of August. The dissolution of the con- 
nection was accomplished with the most kindly 
feelings on both sides. This ministry of five 
years and eight or nine months was the longest 
that the church has enjoyed in its entire his- 
tory. Mr. Emmons went from here to Ver- 



42 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

non, N. Y., where he preached for about twelve 
years. He subsequently lost the use of his 
voice, and was obliged to abandon the pulpit. 
Later he was for twenty-five years the secretary 
of the Home for Aged Women in Revere 
street, Boston. He died on the same day as 
Mrs. Emmons at Short Off, N. C, November 19, 
1899, aged ninety-one years. 

After Mr. Emmons's resignation, efforts were 
made for some months to obtain another min- 
ister from New England, but to no purpose. 
Meanwhile, the Rev. James Freeman Clarke of 
Louisville, Ky., who chanced to be on a visit 
here, 1 supplied the pulpit gratuitously until late 
in October. It was during this short minis- 
try of Mr. Clarke that, on Thursday evening, 
October 12, 1843, Frederic Huidekoper was or- 
dained in the church as an evangelist, the Rev. 
George W. Hosmer of Buffalo making the or- 
daining prayer and charge, and the Rev. Mr. 
Clarke preaching the sermon and extending the 
right hand of fellowship. The results accom- 
plished during Mr. Emmons's ministry had 
shown what large opportunities for service there 
were in the surrounding country ; and it was 

1 He had married Miss Anna Huidekoper, August 15, 1839. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 43 

Mr. Huidekoper's original intention to occupy 
himself as minister-at-large in the vicinity. 
This he did for a short time ; but the Theo- 
logical School founded in the following year 
presently absorbed all his energies. 

Late in October, 1843, Elder Elihu Goodwin 
Holland of the Christian Connection, a religious 
body with which the Unitarians were then cul- 
tivating close relations, especially in the West, 
was engaged to supply the pulpit for six months,, 
and before the end of that term for another 
equal period, at the rate of $500 a year. It 
was expected that he might perhaps stay in- 
definitely as minister of the church, and at the 
same time assist the Rev. Frederic Huidekoper 
in giving instruction to students in the Theo- 
logical School then under consideration, which 
was to receive both Unitarians and members of 
the Christian Connection as students. But the 
prospects for the school presently grew so large 
that such an arrangement did not promise to 
prove adequate. It was for this reason that, 
after a year of satisfactory service, in which he 
had won the cordial regard of the congregation, 
Mr. Holland resigned at the end of September, 
1 844, to make room for his successor. 



44 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Mr. Holland, though a man of marked eccen- 
tricities and not a good pastor, was a fluent 
speaker, of very uncommon oratorical gifts. 
He was a fine scholar, and a thinker of marked 
intellectual power ; an author of several books 
of repute in their time, and withal one of the 
ablest and most distinguished men in his reli- 
gious body during his generation. After leav- 
ing Meadville he ministered to some of the 
leading Christian churches in the country, es- 
pecially in New York and New Jersey, and en- 
joyed fame as a popular lecturer, both at home 
and in Europe. He died December 13, 1878, 
at Canandaigua, N. Y., aged sixty-one years. 

It was considered important to obtain for the 
president of the new school an abler man than 
could be secured for the meager salary that the 
resources at hand allowed. It was arranged, 
therefore, that a salary of $1000 per annum 
should be offered, to be paid half by the school 
and half by the church, and that the incumbent 
should be at once minister of the church and 
president of the school. The Rev. Rufus 
Phineas Stebbins of Leominster, Mass., who 
had been most highly recommended for the 
purpose, was called to fill the double office for 




RUFUS P. STEBBINS, D. D. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 45 

the term of five years. Mr. Stebbins arrived 
at Meadville early in October, 1844, and his 
great energy and organizing powers immediately 
made themselves felt, not only in the church, 
but throughout the whole community. He was 
beyond question the most powerful and eloquent 
preacher whose ministry this church has ever 
enjoyed; a controversialist, upon occasion, of 
great ability, as the local newspapers of the 
time bear ample witness, he did much to com- 
mend the Unitarian faith to the people of the 
community. His congregations doubled within 
the first year ; and his Sunday evening lectures 
on " Unitarianism " were delivered to audiences 
that taxed the capacity of the church to the ut- 
most. He devoted himself without reserve to 
every social or humanitarian reform, was a bold 
leader in the cause of temperance, and was out- 
spoken in the anti-slavery cause, at the cost of 
some antagonism and friction with parishioners 
or friends. 1 

In the pulpit the strength of his convictions 

1 Other ministers of the church during the period of the anti- 
slavery conflict, earnest in the same cause, were Professor Fol- 
som and Mr. Clarke ; and Mr. Huidekoper's house was a station 
on the " Underground Railway." 



46 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

led him to be positive and dogmatic in temper 
and tone ; and the moral standard of his preach- 
ing was characterized by a favorite phrase 
among his people as being one of " upright and 
downright and perfect integrity." It was per- 
haps these characteristics of his that caused the 
fires of religious controversy against Unitarians 
to flame up at Meadville during his ministry as 
they hacl not done since the earliest days of the 
church's existence. 

The controversy began with Mr. Stebbins's 
Sunday evening lectures on Unitarian doctrine, 
to which I have referred, and which were deliv- 
ered in the winter of 1847-48. The lectures 
were not designed to stir up antagonism, but 
they excited a popular interest so wide and in- 
tense that the ministers of the other churches 
felt it necessary to reply to them with counter- 
statements of orthodox doctrine. Nearly all 
the churches were drawn into the current, 
sooner or later, and by a more or less tacit under- 
standing made common cause against hetero- 
doxy. The orthodox side was at first cham- 
pioned by the Rev. William M. Carmichael, 
rector of the Episcopal church ; but he soon 
proved himself, in public estimation, no match 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 47 

for Mr. Stebbins. The Rev. Calvin Kingsley, 
a young man of unusual ability, then professor 
in Allegheny College, and later bishop in the 
Methodist Episcopal church, was therefore pre- 
vailed upon to conduct the one side of what 
speedily developed into a spirited running de- 
bate. 1 This side now found its main expression, 
by common consent, in the pulpit of the Old 
School Presbyterian church, which Professor 
Kingsley was invited to occupy for the purpose". 
If the controversy had begun and ended with a 
full and dispassionate discussion of the cardinal 
doctrines of theology, as seen from opposite 
points of view, upon the merits of which people 
might calmly judge for themselves, it would 
have been well ; the air would have been cleared, 
and the ends of truth and religion might have 
been served. But, as is wont to be the case 

1 The controversy was carried into print. Professor George 
W. Clarke of Allegheny College contributed to it a little book 
entitled " Christ Crucified : or, a plain scriptural vindication of 
the Divinity and Redeeming Acts of Christ, with a statement 
and refutation of the forms of Unitarianism now most preva- 
lent." New York, 1848. This was answered by Mr. Stebbins 
in a pamphlet, " A Letter respecting a Work entitled ' Christ 
Crucified : by George W. Clarke,' addressed to a parishioner." 
Boston, 1849. 



48 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

in religious debates, the proper limits were 
not observed. The controversy spread far and 
wide through the village, and became most 
heated and unhappy ; and animosities were 
aroused which were not only regretted as most 
unfortunate at the time, but which it has re- 
quired a full fifty years to bury out of memory. 

A sequel to this controversy, which reflected 
the unhappy feeling aroused by it, and which 
attracted more than local attention at the time 
it occurred, took place in the summer of 185 1. 
Mr. Stebbins was invited by the Allegheny and 
Philo-Franklin literary societies of Allegheny 
College to lecture before them at the Com- 
mencement season. When this fact came to 
the knowledge of the college trustees, they de- 
manded that the students withdraw their invi- 
tation to Mr. Stebbins; but this they refused 
to do. It was therefore proposed by some of 
the trustees to threaten with expulsion from 
college all students that should attend the lec- 
ture. This proposition was not supported by 
the majority of the board ; but the use of a col- 
lege room for the lecture was refused. Mr. 
Stebbins accordingly lectured before the stu- 
dents in the Court House on the evening of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 49 

July 1, his subject being "Academic Culture." 
The overwhelming sentiment of the people at 
large was shown by the fact that the audience, 
composed of persons of all denominations, was 
the largest that had ever assembled in the vil- 
lage. The Faculty of the College declined to 
attend ; but the Rev. John V. Reynolds, minis- 
ter of the Old School Presbyterian church, ex- 
pressed his sympathy by offering the prayer and 
pronouncing the benediction. 

The church gained greatly in numbers and 
influence under Mr. Stebbins's ministry, and 
the results of it have not yet died away. Dur- 
ing this time the church building was repaired, 
in the summer of 1847, at a cost of about 
$225. 

In order to diffuse the views of liberal Chris- 
tianity the more widely, Mr. Stebbins estab- 
lished in 1852 a monthly magazine called " The 
Christian Repository," in which Unitarians and 
members of the Christian Connection cooper- 
ated, and which was widely circulated through 
the western country. The magazine was con- 
structive in its tone, not narrowly sectarian, and 
was published for one year, when it was discon- 
tinued for lack of support. 



5 o HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Mr. Stebbins was a conservative by temper- 
ament and habit. Life seemed so earnest to 
him that he could see no time in it for frivo- 
lous amusements. He let it be known that he 
deemed it an impropriety for people in leaving 
church to exchange greetings, and he desired 
them to go promptly home in solemn medita- 
tion on things eternal. A man of powerful 
physical frame, he was also of so strong and 
masterful a character as sometimes to be con- 
sidered arbitrary or dictatorial, for he knew no 
compromise of convictions. He was known 
and respected throughout the country as a reli- 
gious educator, and was honored with the de- 
gree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard in 
185 1 ; and he is still widely and distinctly re- 
membered by the older generation as a preacher 
and lecturer. At the end of his five years' term 
he felt obliged to devote his whole time to his 
duties in the Theological School, and resigned 
his office as minister. He remained president 
of the school until June, 1856, and afterward 
held pastorates at Woburn, Mass., Ithaca, N. Y., 
and Newton Centre, Mass. He died at Cam- 
bridge, Mass., August 13, 1885, aged seventy- 
five years. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 51 

The opening of the Meadville Theological 
School, October 1, 1844, was an event of great 
importance and far-reaching consequences to 
this church. It meant that, in addition to its 
normal local constituency, the church was to 
enjoy the presence and support of a constant 
company of teachers and students. It meant 
that this, being the church of the Theological 
School, and having an intimate connection with 
it, was to be the temporary home of half the, 
ministers of the denomination, to which, though 
small, they would ever look back as being, in a 
way, the mother church of the Unitarian faith 
in America. It meant that this church was 
to have the privilege of training up and send- 
ing forth to lives of rare influence and useful- 
ness as ministers' wives a far greater number 
of its daughters than any other church in 
the denomination, whether large or small, can 
claim. 1 It meant that this church was to enjoy 
in the frequent presence of distinguished visit- 
ors advantages which many larger churches 
might well covet ; and that it was not only to 

1 Up to date, January 1, 1902, thirty-six students of the Theo- 
logical School have found their wives at Meadville, besides six 
others who have married young women students in the school. 



52 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

have a select company of young people espe- 
cially fitted and willing to assist in the various 
lines of its church work, but that it was also to 
have the constant opportunity of doing much 
for these in return, opening homes and hearts 
to them in hospitality and friendship which 
should long be remembered with warm grati- 
tude by many who had been trained here. 

In 1845 the constitution of the church, which, 
as has been intimated, had proved unsatisfac- 
tory, was again revised, and given the form that 
it bears to-day, a return being made to some- 
thing like the early simplicity of organization 
and of conditions of membership. A creed was 
still made a test of membership, as follows: 
" Every person of good moral character, who 
professes his belief in the existence of God and 
in the divine mission of his Son Jesus Christ, 
and who declares it to be his intention and wish 
to make the will of God, and the teachings of 
Jesus as revealed to us in the Gospels, the rule 
of his life and conduct, shall be admissible as a 
member of this church." Members were, as a 
rule, to be proposed two weeks in advance, sub- 
ject to objection, and might join either by mak- 
ing a public profession or by simply signing the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 53 

constitution ; but in important matters of busi- 
ness regular worshipers and contributors might 
have a voice, even though not formally mem- 
bers of the church. The office of elder was 
retained, though during much of the church's 
history it has practically been suffered to lapse. 
The minister was to act as moderator in busi- 
ness meetings not concerning himself. Bap- 
tism was to be administered under such form 
as the minister might approve ; and, as a mat- 
ter of fact, it has upon several occasions been 
administered to candidates for membership 
under the form of immersion. 

Mr. Stebbins was followed in the ministry of 
the church by the Rev. Nathaniel Smith Fol- 
som, who was called here from his ministry-at- 
large at Gharlestown, Mass., to fill the double 
office of minister of the church and professor 
of Hermeneutics and New Testament Interpre- 
tation in the Theological School, with a salary 
from the church of #700. He reached Mead- 
ville in September, 1849. It was at the begin- 
ning of his ministry that Mr. Rush Rhees 
Shippen, a son of the Meadville church and 
a graduate of the Theological School, was or- 
dained as an evangelist, on Sunday evening, 



54 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

November 11, 1849, the officiating clergymen 
being President Stebbins, Professors Folsom 
and Huidekoper, and Elder William A. Fuller. 
Professor Folsom, before coming to Meadville, 
had served nine years in the ministry of the 
orthodox Congregational church, and had been 
for an equal term in the Unitarian fellowship. 
For a year and more he had been editor of the 
"Christian Register." He was a very genial 
gentleman, of large social gifts, a man of strong 
intellect and fine scholarship, of refined sensi- 
bilities and an inexorable conscience ; his es- 
pecial talents, however, were rather those of a 
teacher than of a preacher or of a man of de- 
cisive action ; he was therefore in marked con- 
trast to his predecessor, Mr. Stebbins. Like 
him he resigned, in July, 1851, in order to 
devote his whole time to his work in the 
Theological School. He remained here as 
professor until the summer of 1861, when he 
was succeeded by Professor George L. Cary. 
He afterward taught a school for some years 
at Concord, Mass., and returned for a brief 
period to the fellowship of the orthodox minis- 
try, and preached for a short time in orthodox 
churches. These relations, however, he found 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 55 

so unsatisfactory, and so inconsistent with his 
deeper convictions, that he abandoned them 
after a few months. He published, in 1869, a 
" Translation of the Four Gospels," of great 
merit, and in 1879 received the degree of Doc- 
tor of Divinity from Dartmouth College. He 
died, November 10, 1890, at Asheville, N. C, 
aged eighty-four years. 

After Professor Folsom's resignation, it was 
arranged that he should still remain the respon- 
sible minister of the church, but that he should 
be relieved by coadjutors. Dr. Stebbins ap- 
pears to have served in this capacity from Octo- 
ber, 1852, to June, 1853 ; and the Rev. James 
Freeman Clarke, who, having broken down in 
health under the arduous work of establishing 
the Church of the Disciples in Boston, lived at 
Meadville more or less during the three years 
1850-53, served in a similar capacity from 
September, 1851, to October, 1852; and again, 
after an interval of travel in Europe, for ten 
weeks in the summer and autumn of 1853, after 
which he returned to his work in Boston. At 
the beginning of his ministry here, Mr. Clarke 
made this entry in his diary : " To-day I begin 
my work as pastor of this Unitarian society. 



56 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

My duties will be : on Sundays, to conduct pub- 
lic worship and to give lessons in the Sunday- 
school ; on week-days, to visit the parish, hold 
meetings, Bible-classes, etc. The theological 
students to be members of my society." He 
taught gymnastic exercises to the students sev- 
eral times a week, and was in many ways their 
inspirer and friend. Aside from other impor- 
tant literary labors, he published while here his 
books on " The Christian Doctrine of the For- 
giveness of Sin," and " The Christian Doctrine 
of Prayer ; " and it is fair to presume that some 
of the chapters, at least, in those most helpful 
little works, had their first hearing as sermons 
from this pulpit. Mr. Clarke's preaching is 
characterized by one who was a member of his 
congregation here at that time as being " very 
earnest and interesting, full of apt illustrations, - 
and appealing to the deepest spiritual expe- 
riences." He had a marked influence on the 
theological students, whom he did much to 
help, and was deeply interested in the anti-slav- 
ery question, on which he gave a public ad- 
dress in the Court House, besides one or more 
in the church on Sunday evenings. It need 
hardly be added that, after his short interval of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 57 

ministry at Meadville, Mr. Clarke became, as 
minister of the Church of the Disciples in Bos- 
ton, one of the most conspicuous leaders of 
Unitarianism in America. He was a man of 
wide and varied learning, and was honored with 
the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Harvard 
in 1863. He died in Boston, June 8, 1888, 
aged seventy-eight years, universally revered 
and loved. 

After Mr. Clarke's departure from Meadville 
an interval of some seven months followed, dur- 
ing which there was no settled minister, and the 
pulpit was supplied chiefly by students in the 
Theological School, and by professors. The 
church then made an innovation in April, 1854, 
by inviting a member of the senior class, Mr. 
Carlton Albert Staples of Mendon, Mass., to be 
its minister for one year at a salary of $650, 
with the stipulation that he might seek the as- 
sistance of the professors at their common con- 
venience. He accepted the call only after much 
hesitation, and was ordained in the church July 
2, 1854, the sermon being preached by the Rev. 
Dr. Edward Brooks Hall of Providence, R. I. 

It was a difficult and exacting position for a 
young and inexperienced man to undertake, to 



58 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

preach twice a Sunday to a critical congrega- 
tion including his teachers and fellow-students. 
Mr. Staples was a good preacher, however; the 
church grew and the Sunday-school made a 
great advance under his ministry, and he proved 
so generally satisfactory that at the end of a 
year he was called to be permanent minister at 
an increased salary. After a year's time he 
generously volunteered to give way to some 
one who might teach in the Theological School 
while at the same time minister of the church. 
Such a double relation was deemed inexpedient ; 
and indeed, it has usually been felt, whenever 
the minister of the church has also been pro- 
fessor in the Theological School, that sooner or 
later the church has suffered by the arrange- 
ment. 

Near the beginning of Mr. Staples's ministry 
the church suffered a unique loss in the death, 
on May 22, 1854, of H. J. Huidekoper, at the 
age of seventy-eight. He had been not only 
the founder of the church, and its most gen- 
erous benefactor in material ways, but most 
active in everything pertaining to its welfare. 
He was one of its elders from its organization 
to the time of his death, was for years a constant 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 59 

and faithful teacher in the Sunday-schools in 
both town and country, and was present with 
his class the last Sunday before his death. He 
was, with his son Frederic, virtually the founder 
of the Theological School, to which he gave 
generously. He was the first president of its 
board of trustees, and his position in the affairs 
of the denomination at large is shown by the fact 
that he was vice-president of the American Uni- 
tarian Association from 1837 to 1847. In the 
community, and throughout this whole region, 
he was widely known and deeply respected as a 
man of strong character and inflexible integrity, 
as well as of courtly manners and a tender heart. 

On the day after Mr. Staples's ordination a 
step forward was taken, looking toward the 
future growth of the church, in the purchase 
of the lot on which the parish building now 
stands. The lot cost #1000, which was paid 
from a fund contributed jointly by the Hui- 
dekoper heirs. Mr. Staples remained here until 
March, 1857, when he resigned in order to enter 
a larger sphere as colleague with the Rev. Wil- 
liam Greenleaf Eliot in the church at St. Louis. 
He afterward ministered to important parishes 
at Milwaukee, Chicago, and Providence, and 



60 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

was for a time Western Secretary of the Ameri- 
can Unitarian Association. He has now been 
for some twenty years minister of the church 
at Lexington, Mass., and is to-day the oldest 
living survivor among those who have been 
ministers of this church. 

After Mr. Staples's departure there was an 
interim of eight or nine months, during which 
the pulpit was supplied mainly by President 
Stearns and Professor Folsom of the Theologi- 
cal School. Within this interval the old church 
organ was replaced by a new one of twelve 
stops, at a cost of $550. Late in the autumn 
of 1857 the Rev. Rush Rhees Shippen, who was 
at Meadville seeking a year's rest at his old 
home, after eight years' laborious work as min- 
ister of the First Unitarian Society at Chi- 
cago, was asked to supply the pulpit so long as 
he should stay here, and did so for nine or ten 
months. The church had been steadily growing 
for several years past, and this short ministry 
was one of marked prosperity. Mr. Shippen's 
preaching awakened an unusual degree of in- 
terest, and was attended by large congrega- 
tions morning and evening, including many 
men who had hitherto remained aloof from the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



6x 



church. 1 Mr. Shippen was asked to accept a 
call as permanent minister, but declined to do 
so. He went from here in September, 1858, 
to become minister of the church at Worcester, 
Mass., where he served thirteen years. He was 
secretary of the American Unitarian Associa- 
tion for ten years, minister of the church in 
Washington for fourteen years, and is now set- 
tled over the church at Brockton, Mass. 

After Mr. Shippen, the pulpit was again sup- 
plied until the end of the year mainly by theo- 
logical students; and during the year 1859 
chiefly by two members of the faculty of the 
Theological School : at the evening services by 
Professor Folsom, and in the morning by the 
Rev. Dr. Oliver Stearns, who had been called 
from the church at Hingham, Mass., in 1856, to 
succeed Dr. Stebbins as president. Toward 
the end of the year the pulpit was also supplied 
for several months by the Rev. Thomas J. 
Mumford, recently from the church at Detroit. 

1 It caused no little comment at this time that, during some 
union revival meetings that were being held at Meadville, the 
conduct of them was so managed that students in the Theologi- 
cal School, who had at first taken part in them, were afterward 
excluded from doing so. The sole ground for this action was 
that they were Unitarians. 



62 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



Pastoral work, and the consequent development 
of the parish in certain ways, must have suffered 
somewhat during these different periods when 
the church did not receive the full services of 
a minister; but the ministrations of the pul- 
pit were of an uncommonly high order. Dr. 
Stearns, while not brilliant or magnetic, was a 
man of great ability, and ranked as a preacher 
among the foremost of his time, thoughtful, 
clear, and earnest, and of intense spirituality. 
He was called from here in 1863 to be profes- 
sor (and in 1870, Dean) in the Harvard Divin- 
ity School. He died at Cambridge, July 18, 
1885, at the age of seventy-eight years. 

The next minister of the church was the Rev. 
Richard Metcalf, who had previously served the 
church at Bath, Maine, and who, after preaching 
here for a month or more, was called, January 
23, i860, at a salary of #1000, the highest that 
the church had yet offered. At the outset of 
his ministry here, Mr. Metcalf aroused a good 
deal of interest by a series of doctrinal sermons, 
which were afterward published under the title 
of " Letter and Spirit," and were considered in 
their time one of the best presentations of the 
Unitarian position. Under him both church 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 63 

and Sunday-school were in a flourishing condi- 
tion ; 1 many new members joined the former, 
and the latter received a great impetus. It be- 
came largely a missionary school, and a mission 
society was connected with it, to seek out the 
poor and destitute of the village, clothe them, 
and bring them into the school. Monthly ves- 
per services were held, alternating with lectures, 
conference meetings, and Sunday-school con- 
certs. Mr. Metcalfs ministry was a period of 
kindly relations with other churches. At the 
time of the session of the Western Unitarian 
Conference here, at the end of June, 1864, vis- 
iting Unitarian ministers were invited to oc- 
cupy the pulpits of the Methodist and Baptist 
churches. The Rev. Alfred P. Putnam of 
Brooklyn, N. Y., and the Rev. Jacob G. Forman 
of Alton, 111., preached in the former church, 
and the Rev. Dr. Stebbins and the Rev. Samuel 
B. Flagg of Kalamazoo, Mich., in the latter. 
In the summer of 1863 the church underwent 

1 Meadville was feeling the stimulus that came from the 
opening of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad in 1863, 
and from the then rapidly developing oil industry. It was the 
period of the town's most rapid growth. In 1863 there had 
come to be toward 7000 inhabitants ; and a city charter was 
granted February 15, 1866. 



6 4 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



extensive repairs, at a cost of over $800, and 
eight new pews were added in order to accom- 
modate the increased attendance. In May of 
the next year, too, Miss Margaret Shippen, who, 
it will be remembered, had given half the origi- 
nal church lot, gave for a minister's house her 
former residence, a brick house and lot at the 
rear of the church. The house had been 
erected by the county in 18 19, and had served 
for county offices until the completion of the 
new Court House in 1825. This gift was made 
upon the condition that $1000 should, at Miss 
Shippen's death, be paid to the Theological 
School on her behalf, and that an annuity re- 
presenting the rents of the property should be 
paid her during the remainder of her life ; but 
she assigned the latter in 1867 to the Theolo- 
gical School. 1 The house was never much 
occupied by the ministers, but was generally 
rented, until it was demolished in 189 1 to make 
room for the present minister's house. 

Mr. Metcalf was a man small in stature, never 

1 Miss Shippen had for many years resided in Philadelphia, 
where she died May 9, 1876, aged ninety-four years. The $1000 
was paid over to the Theological School soon after the gift of 
the property, out of a joint fund made up by the Huidekoper 
heirs. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 65 

of robust health, and with defective eyesight ; 
yet he bore his crosses with a heroic endurance 
and a Christian cheerfulness which won him 
not only the respect but the devoted love of his 
congregation. He is said to have been not 
unlike Starr King in his brightness, genial- 
ity, and love of humor. Conservative in faith, 
but of generous tolerance, he was a man of 
fine mind and spirit, and of modest demeanor, 
equally good as preacher or as pastor ; and his 
sermons, which his lack of eyesight compelled 
him to dictate to an amanuensis, and which he 
preached memoriter, were earnest and thought- 
ful, full of practical sense and a large spiritual- 
ity. Continued ill health compelled him to give 
up his work here in May, 1865 ; and the es- 
teem in which he was held is witnessed by the 
proposition that was made at the time of his 
resignation, to make him a parting gift of six 
months' salary. He afterward became more 
vigorous in body, and in 1866 became the first 
minister of the new church at Winchester, 
Mass., which he served for fifteen years, until 
his death, June 30, 1 881, at the age of fifty-one 
years. 

It was a full year after Mr. Metcalf 's depar- 



66 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

ture before his successor arrived; and in the 
mean time the pulpit was supplied by the Rev. 
Abiel Abbot Livermore, who had succeeded Dr. 
Stearns in 1863 as president of the Theological 
School, by Professor Frederic Huidekoper, and 
by students or visiting ministers. At length a 
call was given, January 28, 1866, to the Rev. 
John Celivergos Zachos of West Newton, Mass. 
He accepted the call and began his ministry 
here at the beginning of May, at a salary of 
$1500, in addition to the rents of the minis- 
ter's house, and with four weeks' annual vaca- 
tion. The kindly attitude of the other churches, 
which in Mr. Metcalf's time had happily suc- 
ceeded to a long period of intermittent . contro- 
versy, continued during Mr. Zachos's ministry. 

Mr. Zachos was a Greek by birth (though 
that was not evident in his appearance or his 
speech), and had come to America when a mere 
lad with Dr. Samuel G. Howe of Boston. He 
was a graduate of Kenyon College, but had not 
studied with direct reference to his profession, 
and before entering the ministry had been prin- 
cipal of the preparatory department of Antioch 
College, where he was a fellow-teacher with 
Professor George L. Cary. Something of the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 67 ' 

schoolmaster was apparent in his style of 
preaching. He was a versatile man, with an 
uncommonly wide range of interests ; a Greek 
in temperament as well as by birth, fond of ab- 
stract themes, and inclined to consider subjects 
rather from the philosophical or speculative 
than from the practical side. Yet, though flu- 
ent in language, he was not considered an espe- 
cially strong preacher, nor yet a superior pastor. 
In addition to the work of his ministry, he was 
professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Oratory in 
the Theological School during the two years of 
his residence here, and continued to hold this 
office during the year after his departure, re- 
turning to give lectures. To him, it is said, 
is due the suggestion that led to the forming 
of the Meadville Literary Union in December, 
1866. 

Mr. Zachos resigned in July, 1868, and left 
Meadville at the beginning of October, in order 
to accept a call to the church at Ithaca, N. Y. 
His departure was generally lamented, as the 
loss of a faithful minister who was ready to de- 
vote himself to every good cause, and who had 
endeared himself to all classes by his affable 
manner and his kindness of heart. He was 



68 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



minister at Ithaca for one year, where he also 
lectured at Cornell University on elocution, a 
subject upon which he published several books. 
In 1872 he became curator of the Cooper 
Union in New York City, and held this office 
until his death, on March 20, 1898, at the age 
of seventy-seven years. 

After Mr. Zachos there followed yet another 
interval of nearly eighteen months during which 
no regular minister was settled. The pulpit 
was supplied by visiting ministers, by theologi- 
cal students, and by President Livermore. It 
was in this interval that, beginning early in 
February, 1869, a series of Unitarian theatre 
meetings was held for several weeks at Museum 
Hall in Chestnut street, and afterward at the 
Opera House, at the southeast corner of Water 
and Chestnut streets. The meetings were held 
under the direction of the professors and stu- 
dents of the Theological School. There was 
preaching by the Rev. Joseph F. Lovering of 
Concord, N. H., by the Rev. George W. Hosmer, 
D. D., of Buffalo, and by Mr. Ellery Channing 
Butler, a student in the Theological School. 
Theatre preaching was in great vogue at just 
that period, as a mode of evangelistic endeavor ; 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 69 

and the meetings here were well attended, and 
excited a considerable degree of popular interest. 

On February 26, 1870, the Rev. Henry Par- 
tridge Cutting, recently from the church at 
Alton, III, was called to be minister, and began 
his labors on the second Sunday in March, at a 
salary of $1200 and house, with four weeks' va- 
cation. He was a man of middle age, who had 
originally preached for some twenty years in Unir 
versalist churches in New England, and more 
recently in Unitarian churches in the Mississippi 
valley. He was a vigorous preacher, untiring 
in the faithfulness and earnestness with which 
he labored to discharge his duties ; but though 
the church at first continued to grow in strength 
under his ministry, the attendance at church 
and at Sunday-school at length fell off. He was 
a man of high character, though not of great 
culture or tact, and with certain infelicities of 
temper. But, although he had many friends 
here, his was not one of the church's happiest 
pastorates; and the friction that developed to- 
ward the end of it caused, some division of feel- 
ing among the members of the congregation. 
His relation with the church was terminated in 
the spring of 1873, when he went to Sterling, 



7o HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Mass., where he preached for eight years. In 
1 88 1 he entered the ministry of the orthodox 
Congregational church, and held various pastor- 
ates in it until his death at Harwichport, Mass., 
December 13, 1896, at the age of seventy-three 
years. 

In the interval following Mr. Cutting's depar- 
ture, the pulpit was supplied. for three months 
by the Rev. Clark G. Howland of Kalamazoo, 
Mich., and, as usual in such cases, by mem- 
bers of the Theological School and by visiting 
ministers. In the month of December, 1873, 
Mr. Francis Greenwood Peabody of Boston 
preached two Sundays as a candidate. He was 
a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School in 
the preceding year, and son of the Rev. Ephraim 
Peabody, one of the earliest ministers of the 
church. His preaching aroused the greatest 
interest, and he was promptly called by a unan- 
imous vote, at the salary of $1800 in addition 
to the rents of the minister's house, — a larger 
salary than has ever been offered to any one 
else either before or since. His decision hung 
in the balance for some time ; but he at length 
declined the call, and accepted one to the First 
Parish Church at Cambridge, Mass., where he 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 71 

has now for many years been .professor in 
Harvard University. Mr. Peabody's classmate, 
Mr. Robert Swain Morison of Milton, Mass., 
preached here next as a candidate in March and 
April, 1874, at the end of which time he was. 
called unanimously at the salary of $1500 with 
five weeks' vacation. The call was accepted 
for the period of ten months ; and at the end of 
that time it was renewed for an indefinite pe- 
riod, and accepted. After accepting the call, 
Mr. Morison received ordination at Milton, 
July 1, 1874, and began his ministry here with 
the month of September. In the intervening 
summer the church was thoroughly renovated 
and repaired, at a cost of over $600. 

Mr. Morison was one of the best beloved 
ministers that this church has ever had. Dur- 
ing his ministry the church visibly grew both 
in the outward evidences of strength and wel- 
fare, and in the deepening of spirit and of inter- 
est in works of benevolence and philanthropy ; 
and it became as prosperous as at almost any 
time in its history. Mr. Morison was a su- 
perior and indefatigable pastor,. and he achieved 
the most phenomenal success in his work with 
the Sunday-school. Largely a mission school, 



72 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

with many scholars from the German element, 
it rapidly grew until it had an enrollment of 
over 450, becoming one of the largest schools 
in the denomination, and larger, I think, than 
any school at Meadville has been either before 
or since. 

The demands of the Sunday-school, which 
had now far outgrown its accommodations in 
the church, where it had always met hitherto, 
led to renewed discussion of a plan, which 
had been considered as early as 1871, to erect 
a parish building for the better accommodation 
of the Sunday-school and the social meetings of 
the church. It had been at first proposed that 
the terrace at the west of the church should be 
removed, and the basement finished off for the 
purpose ; but it was soon realized that such a 
plan would be far from satisfying the needs that 
were felt. In September, 1875, however, the 
timely gift of $5000 from the heirs of the late 
H. J. Huidekoper, made it possible to erect 
the present parish building, on the lot which 
had been acquired in 1854 adjoining the church 
on the east. Construction was begun the next 
spring, and the building was completed in Au- 
gust, at a total expense of over $6000. The 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 73 

furnishing cost over $1000 more, of which the 
Young Ladies' Society contributed about $600, 
while $100 in pennies was raised by the chil- 
dren of the Sunday-school. The building thus 
furnished was dedicated on Saturday, Novem- 
ber 18, 1876, and a house-warming followed five 
days later. 

Pleasant relations with the other churches 
of the city continued during Mr. Morison's 
ministry, and in 1875 he was invited by the 
Presbyterian minister to take part in a union 
Thanksgiving day service. " The tidal wave of 
toleration has reached Meadville in full force," 
wrote a correspondent to the " Liberal Chris- 
tian." A ministry of the greatest promise was 
cut short when, in the autumn of 1877, Mr. Mor- 
ison fell a victim to nervous prostration, which 
proved so serious that he was compelled to offer 
his resignation the following March. The re- 
signation was accepted with extreme reluctance 
and universal sorrow. This was Mr. Morison's 
sole pastorate; and he has never failed each 
year since to testify his abiding affection for his 
only church by sending it a box of roses at 
Easter. He has been librarian of the Harvard 
Divinity School since 1889. 



74 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Some months of casual supplies again en- 
sued, when the Rev. James Thompson Bixby of 
Belfast, Maine, who had preached here as a can- 
didate two Sundays in September, was called, 
October 6, 1878, to perform joint service as 
minister of the church and professor of Re- 
ligious Philosophy and Ethnic Religions in the 
Theological School. He began his ministry in 
January, 1879. Mr. Bixby 's conspicuous gifts 
were those of a scholar, an indefatigable student, 
and a preacher of thoughtful sermons of a high 
intellectual character. During his ministry a 
monthly parish paper was published for three 
years, and was quite helpful to the cause of the 
church. It was known in 1879 and 1880 as 
" Church and School," and was edited by Fitz 
Henry Bemis. In 1881 it became " Good Tid- 
ings," published jointly in the interest of this 
church and the church at Buffalo, with the 
Rev. George W. Cutter as additional editor. 
Mr. Bixby ministered to the church acceptably 
until the summer of 1883, when, having re- 
signed, he went abroad for the purpose of uni- 
versity study in Germany. He has been settled 
over the church at Yonkers, N. Y., since 1887. 

In September, 1883, the Rev. William Phil- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 75 

lips Tilden of Boston, who had finished his ac- 
tive ministry, was invited to come to this church 
as a temporary supply, at a compensation of 
$125 per month. He was unable to come at 
once, but came at the beginning of January for 
a supply of four months. He soon became 
revered and loved both in the church and in 
the community at large to such an extent that 
he was compelled, contrary to his first inten- 
tion, to return for a second season. At the 
end of his second term, the church again re- 
newed its call, and would have been heartily 
glad to settle him as its minister for an in-, 
definite period ; but he was unwilling, at his 
advanced age, again to take up the responsibili- 
ties of a regular pastorate, and, after supplying 
during the seven months from October, 1884,'to 
April, 1885, he returned to New England. 

Mr. Tilden had been trained in early life as a 
ship-carpenter, but had left that calling to study 
for the ministry under the Rev. Samuel J. May, 
and had preached for more than forty years in 
New England churches. He was a forcible and 
interesting speaker, combining vigor of thought 
with simplicity of expression ; of saintly char- 
acter, and beloved wherever he went. While 



76 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

preaching here, he also delivered courses of 
lectures to the theological students on pastoral 
duties, which were so highly esteemed that they 
were published under the title, " The Work of 
the Ministry." Harvard College honored him 
with the degree of Master of Arts in 1884. He 
died at Milton, Mass., October 3, 1890, at the 
age of seventy-nine years. 

The pulpit was again filled by supplies until 
the end of the year, when the Rev. Henry Her- 
vey Barber was asked to supply the pulpit until 
the summer vacation. Mr. Barber was a gradu- 
ate of the Meadville Theological School 1 in 
the class of 1861, and had come to Meadville in 
the autumn of 1884 from his church at Somer- 
ville, Mass., to become professor of the Philo- 
sophy and History of Religion in the Theologi- 
cal School. His services to the church were so 
satisfactory, both in the pulpit, where his preach- 
ing was earnest, fervent, and, in the best sense 
of the word, popular, and among the people, 
where he showed himself a real pastor, that 
he was re-engaged from year to year until the 

1 Curiously enough, of all the ministers of this church, but 
three have received their training at Meadville : Messrs. Staples, 
Shippen, and Barber. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 77 

summer of 1890, when the state of his health re- 
quired him to confine himself simply to his work 
as professor. Mr. Barber's ministry endeared 
him to the people in both city and country ; and 
he has ever since been regarded by many per- 
sons without definite church connections, both 
in town and in the surrounding country (whither 
he often went to preach), as a sort of pastor-at- 
large. A noteworthy event of his ministry was. 
the celebration, on June 16, 1886, of the fiftieth 
anniversary of the dedication of the church. 
A historical discourse was delivered by the 
Rev. Rush R. Shippen ; addresses were made 
by Alfred Huidekoper, president of the even- 
ing, by Joseph Shippen, Esq., the Rev. George 
W. Cutter of Buffalo, the Rev. Mr. Tilden, and 
others. Letters were read from former minis- 
ters of the church, and the hymns sung at the 
dedication of the church were sung again. The 
anniversary was attended by many friends from 
a distance, and was most successfully carried 
out. In 1887 the organ, which had until then 
stood in the gallery, was brought down and 
placed at the front of the church, east of the 
pulpit, and some further alterations were made. 
It was more than a year before a successor 



78 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

to Professor Barber was found ; and during the 
interval the pulpit was acceptably supplied, with 
morning services only, by Professor Barber, 
Professor Egbert Morse Chesley, and Professor 
George Rudolph Freeman of the Theological 
School. Meanwhile the Rev. William L. Chaffin 
of North Easton, Mass., and the Rev. George L. 
Chaney of Atlanta, Ga., were successively called 
to the church, and both declined. At length the 
Rev. Thomas Jefferson Volentine of Duluth, 
Minn., was called, July 25, 1891, after having 
preached here during the month as a candidate. 
He accepted the call, and began his ministry in 
September, at a salary of #1500, and house. 
During the summer the present commodious 
and pleasant minister's house had*been built at 
an expense of about $6000, given from a joint 
fund contributed by the Huidekoper heirs, and 
supplemented by donations from Miss Elizabeth 
G. Huidekoper. 

Mr. Volentine, not a well man, was a good 
preacher, facile in extemporaneous discourse, 
deeply interested in temperance and in other 
questions of practical sociology, and in the im- 
provement of the city. He had originally been 
in the ministry of the orthodox Congregational 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 79 

church, and attached great importance to a 
proper organization and a recognized member- 
ship as necessary for the church's future pros- 
perity. Finding that these matters, in the 
many and frequent changes of ministers, had 
suffered some neglect, he endeavored with 
great zeal to bring them into what he con- 
ceived to be a desirable condition. In the 
process of this work the discovery was made 
that a creed (long forgotten even by the most 
of those that had signed it) was still imposed 
as a test of membership, and that a consider- 
able number of the most devoted supporters of 
the church were unwilling to become members 
of it under any such condition. The attempt 
was made to abolish the creed altogether, and 
thus to bring this church into harmony, as to 
limits of religious freedom, with the great ma- 
jority of the Unitarian churches of the country. 
But to such a course unexpected opposition 
developed, and a compromise was at length 
arrived at, and a resolution adopted according 
to which persons having conscientious scru- 
ples about subscribing a, creed might never- 
theless become members of the church by 
so stating upon signing their names. These 



8o 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



reforms seemed, however, at the time when they 
were first proposed, so revolutionary, and they 
were urged in a manner so injudicious, as to 
arouse some feeling of personal antagonism, 
which culminated at length in Mr. Volentine's 
resignation. Many members joined the church 
under these new conditions, and the creed has 
again dropped into obscurity. Persons joining 
the church since 1895 nave done so upon sub- 
scribing the simple and undogmatic covenant 
now so widely used in Unitarian churches : " In 
the love of truth, and in the spirit of Jesus, we 
unite for the worship of God, and the service of 
man." It is not likely that the creedal test will 
ever again be insisted upon ; but the church 
has not yet seen fit squarely to disavow the 
right to prescribe certain beliefs for its mem- 
bers. Mr. Volentine's resignation was pre- 
sented, May, 1893, and at once accepted. He 
went from Meadville at the beginning of Sep- 
tember, and was afterward minister of the 
church at Waterville, Maine. After a painful 
and lingering illness he died in Brooklyn, N. Y., 
February 22, 1900, at the age of fifty-eight years. 

After many tribulations in trying to have the 
old organ repaired, it was thought best to dis- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 81 

pose of it altogether, and a new organ was pur- 
chased late in 1893 at a cost of $1885. During 
the season from the autumn of 1893 to the 
summer of 1894, the pulpit of the church was 
ably supplied by the Rev. James Morris Whi- 
ton, Ph. D., of New York, — a clergyman of 
the orthodox Congregational church, who had 
been recommended by our national Committee 
on Fellowship. In addition to his duties as 
minister, he lectured upon ethics and econom- 
ics in the Theological School for a part of the 
year, to supply a vacancy. Dr. Whiton was not 
what is called a popular preacher ; but he was 
in close touch with the important questions of 
the day, and his profound and scholarly ser- 
mons were highly appreciated. His fine social 
qualities made him a very useful pastor, and he 
did much to make the church respected in the 
community by the ability and excellent spirit 
of his work. But though Dr. Whiton gave 
great satisfaction both as preacher and as pas- 
tor, it was not thought advisable to form perma- 
nent relations with a minister not in the Unita- 
rian fellowship, and his ministry here ceased in 
June, 1894. He is well known as one of the 
present editors of the " Outlook." 



82 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



On March 17, 1894, the Rev. Frederick L. 
Hosmer, late of the church at Cleveland, Ohio, 
was called, but the call was not accepted. A 
month later a call was given to the Rev. Wil- 
liam Irvin Lawrance, of Boston, which the state 
of his health did not permit him to accept. A 
call given in November to Mr. Minot Osgood 
Simons, a recent graduate of the Harvard Di- 
vinity School, was also declined. At the an- 
nual meeting in January, 1895, a second call 
was given to Mr. Lawrance, who was at that 
time supplying the pulpit, and he accepted, at a 
salary of $1 500 and house. Mr. Lawrance had 
been for a number of years a minister in the 
Christian Connection, and had more recently 
been minister of a Unitarian church at Dorches- 
ter, Mass., and a representative of the American 
Unitarian Association in its work in Japan. 

The most important event in the external 
history of the church during Mr. Lawrance's 
ministry was the extensive repairs that the 
church building received in the summer and 
autumn of 1897. The church had fallen into a 
somewhat shabby state, and the plans for repair- 
ing it received earnest discussion and aroused 
great interest in the congregation at large. The 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 83 

end aimed at was to restore the church to con- 
sistent harmony with the original plans, with 
modern freshening and brightening of color; 
and the effect secured was that of the " old 
Colonial " style of New England, and it gave 
great .satisfaction to all. The church was given 
a new ceiling, and was repainted and newly 
decorated ; the alcove behind the pulpit was 
deepened, and the organ placed in it ; the seats 
were made lower and wider, and the pulpit 
lowered and brought forward, and some of the 
front pews removed to make room for it. The 
repairs were accomplished at a cost of about 
$2500,. and church services, which had during 
the mean time been held in the parish building, 
were resumed in the church on Sunday, No- 
vember 28, 1897. 

Mr. Lawrance's ministry was carried on 
under continuous physical infirmities, and dur- 
ing the most of the first six months, owing to 
his illness, the pulpit was supplied by members 
of the senior class in the Theological School ; 
while students and professors rendered fre- 
quent assistance during the years following. 
Mr. Lawrance pursued his ministry with a true 
evangelistic zeal and fervor, and both he and 



8 4 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



his wife, who brought untiring vigor into her 
own part of the parish work, greatly endeared 
themselves to the people. In the pulpit he 
was winning, original, and persuasive ; and the 
church attendance steadily grew under his min- 
istry. The work of the church for the children 
and young people throve ; and spiritual life was 
visibly deepened among the congregation, and 
found expression in a series of neighborhood 
meetings held in private houses during the 
lenten season of 1898. 

During the season of 1896-97, Mr. Law- 
rance edited a monthly parish paper called 
" Good Tidings," which provided a means of 
intercommunication for the parish, and served 
a certain missionary purpose. In his ministry 
the last trace of controversy with other churches 
seems to have vanished ; 1 he was made a mem- 
ber of the Meadville Ministerial Association, 

1 The last public controversy was one carried on in the Mead- 
ville Tribune, in the autumn of 1886. Originally upon the sub- 
ject of the Bible, between Fitz Henry Bemis on the one side 
and the Rev. T. D. Logan of the Central Presbyterian church 
on the other, it presently drifted into a debate upon the doc- 
trines of the Roman Catholic church, between the Rev. J. G. 
Carnachan of the Congregational church, and the Rev. J. J. 
Dunn of St. Bridget's church. The whole controversy occu- 
pied some seven months, and was widely read. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 85 

and was invited to preach at the union Thanks- 
giving day service in the Baptist church in 
1897. I* was a deep disappointment to the 
parish when Mr. Lawrance offered his resigna- 
tion at the beginning of March, 1 899, to accept 
a call- to the church at Winchester, Mass., 
whither he went a month later. During the 
months that followed his departure several can- 
didates were heard ; and in September one of 
them, the Rev. Earl Morse Wilbur, who had 
previously had a ministry of eight years with 
the church at Portland, Oregon, was called. 
His ministry began with the last Sunday in Oc- 
tober, 1899, and is not yet material for history. 

No history of this church would be complete 
that failed to give some account of the various 
subordinate organizations through which it has 
performed its work along manifold lines. - Of 
these the oldest and probably the most impor- 
tant in its usefulness has been that of the wo- 
men of the church. As has already been re- 
lated, the women were accustomed from the 
very beginning of the movement to meet and 
sew; but it was not until the autumn of 1845 
that they formally organized by adopting a 
constitution, under the name of " The Ladies' 



86 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



Benevolent Circle," " to promote a spirit of 
mutual sympathy, to assist in individual im- 
provement, and to aid in works of benevo- 
lence." Meetings were to be held fortnightly, 
and the time " devoted to charitable work and 
reading books of a moral and religious char- 
acter." The women of the Circle sewed for 
the poor, and for many years attended to 
such general relief work as is now carried 
on through the Associated Charities. Their 
meetings, in recent years held monthly, have 
been continued without interruption from the 
beginning down to the present day, except for 
a time during the Civil War, when the women 
were occupied in sewing for the soldiers ; and 
their socials or suppers, held sometimes fort- 
nightly and sometimes monthly, have been the 
social center of the parish. The Circle has in 
the aggregate earned and disbursed a large 
amount of money, both for the especial pur- 
poses of the church and for general benevo- 
lence, and has always assumed the care and 
maintenance of the parish building as its espe- 
cial responsibility. Post-office Mission work has 
been carried on by a special committee since 
1894. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 87 

The women also maintained a branch of the 
National Alliance of Unitarian and Other Lib- 
eral Christian Women from 1891 to 1898, which 
at first existed separately, but was in 1893 
merged with the Ladies' Benevolent Circle, 
though it still held separate monthly meetings 
alternating with the meetings for sewing. 

The Sunday-school has from the beginning 
been nurtured with the care it deserved, and has 
often been large . out of all proportion to the 
size of the regular parish. It has always been 
to a greater or less degree a mission school, 
drawing in many children whose families had 
other church connections or none at all ; and 
from such sources many members for the 
church have eventually come. The school has 
been singularly fortunate in being able to draw 
so largely upon the theological students for its 
officers and teachers ; and some of the most 
successful Sunday-school workers in the de- 
nomination have had their early training in 
the work of superintending or teaching in the 
Meadville Sunday-school. 1 The school has 

1 To mention no others, the Rev. Edward A. Horton and the 
Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones, superintendents in 1867 and 1868 
respectively. 



88 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 



at various times raised considerable sums of 
money in aid of local church work, or of chari- 
table objects at a distance. 

Perhaps the most active and vigorous work 
carried on in connection with the church in its 
later years has been that of the young women, 
who in 1874 organized the Young Ladies' Soci- 
ety, for the purpose of raising money to erect a 
parish building. To this end fairs and bazaars 
were held, entertainments and concerts given, 
suppers served, and various other means were 
employed. The money for the desired building 
having been supplied from another source, the 
young women contributed largely toward the 
furnishings. In 1883, the members, in order 
the better to inform themselves about the relig- 
ious faith they professed, added reading and lec- 
tures to their meetings, and in 1887 the name of 
the society was changed to " Ladies' Auxiliary 
Society," in order to signify the desire for closer 
cooperation with the Benevolent Circle, with 
which it has at times held its meetings. The 
membership of the society has averaged about 
thirty, and monthly or fortnightly meetings 
have been held — in recent years with the ac- 
companiment of suppers. The society has at 

L.of G. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 89 

one time or another bought a piano for the 
Sunday-school, redecorated or refurnished the 
parish building, contributed toward the church 
organ or the choir fund, and given substantial 
aid to many other objects both related to the 
church and separate from it. 

In November, 1886, a literary society was 
formed, with a membership of about twenty of 
the younger people. It held fortnightly meet- 
ings at the homes of members, and devoted- 
itself to the study of the works of an author 
chosen for the year. Its membership presently 
became greatly increased, and in October, 1892, 
it was reorganized as a Unity Club, and allied 
itself with the church work, and met in the 
parish building. Meetings were discontinued 
probably in the spring of 1896. 

The young people of the church also united 
for a more direct religious purpose early in the 
year 1888, and formed the Look-Up League, 
though without any strict organization. Sun- 
day evening religious meetings have been held 
ever since that time, and have been of the great- 
est value to the religious life of the members. 
The League definitely organized by adopting a 
constitution in the autumn of 1900. The nom- 



9 o HISTORICAL SKETCH 

inal membership is about forty, and the meet- 
ings have been very helpful and well attended. 
Other organizations of briefer duration among 
the young people for different purposes have 
been the Cheerful Workers (also called Willing 
Workers, and Busy Workers), a society of the 
young girls of the Sunday-school, which existed 
from 1890 to 1896, and by sales and entertain- 
ments raised. money which was spent for objects 
of the church or for charity ; the Footlights, a 
dramatic club of a score or more of members, 
which held occasional entertainments from 
1893 to 1898, and contributed generously to 
church causes ; the Whatsoever Club of girls of 
the Sunday-school, formed in 1898, and still ex- 
isting under the name of the Girls' Club, aim- 
ing to make its efforts useful to the church 
in any way possible ; the Knights Excelsior, a 
secret society of boys, which met weekly from 
1898 to 1 900 for mutual improvement, and fit- 
ted up a gymnasium in the Sunday-school room. 
Doubtless there have been yet other societies 
whose existence has left no outward trace, but 
has nevertheless aided good causes, and de- 
veloped the young in the way of unselfish en- 
deavor. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 91 

The deeper history of a church is written in 
the lives of the members whom it has nourished, 
and who have supported it in turn with true 
filial devotion. Not to mention those still 
among the living, it would be ungrateful not 
to put on record here the names of at least a 
few of those whose devotion to the church has 
contributed most conspicuously to its welfare. 
Some of these have already been mentioned in 
the course of this history. Besides them, there 
were such men as Octavius Hastings, a well- 
known merchant, for a generation one of the 
most active and faithful in his attention to ' 
the business affairs of the church, and William 
D. Tucker, for over thirteen years its treasurer; 
there were the brothers Huidekoper, who gave 
largely of their substance, whether in their an- 
nual subscriptions or for special purposes, but 
not less largely of personal effort inspired by 
sincere devotion to the church that their father 
had founded : Alfred, who contributed a con- 
siderable part of the expense of the parish 
building, and liberally toward the building of 
the minister's house ; Edgar, sometime, trea- 
surer, of the church, and for many years the 
wise treasurer of the Theological School ; and 



92 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

Frederic, in whose heart the Theological School 
was founded, who for many years gave it his 
gratuitous services as professor, and whose 
daughter Anna, continuing the traditions of the 
family, left the church a legacy of $2000 1 at her 
lamented death in 1893 ; there were also the 
brothers Cullum : Horace, for eight years trea- 
surer of the church, and all his life a model lay- 
man, never absent from his seat on Sunday ; 
Arthur, showing his devotion to the church 
in constant attention to its interests, and for 
twenty years president of the board of trustees 
of the Theological School ; and Clinton, whose 
voice was for a generation heard in the church 
choir, who was long a member of the business 
committee, and who was constant in his watch- 
ful attention to the many little details that 
make church affairs go smoothly. These are 
some of the names that one finds recurring 
most frequently as one reads the records of the 
church, and without which its history must have 
been far other than what it is ; but there have 
been scores of others whose love for the church 
and whose devotion to its welfare have been not 

1 One fourth of the income to go to the Sunday-school, the 
rest to the church. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 93 

one whit the less strong, and whose services 
have been less conspicuous only because their 
opportunities have been more restricted. Few 
churches have rejoiced in a larger proportion 
of both men and women that not only received 
its benefits, but also would give themselves to 
it in return. 

The church's officers have served it unself- 
ishly and faithfully, and to them it has owed 
more than can be repaid except in appreciation 
and gratitude. Its material resources have never 
been abundant, but it has been a matter of tra- 
ditional pride to have its business affairs kept 
well managed. The constitution of the church 
provides that " it shall be the duty of the busi- 
ness committee to take care that the salary of 
the pastor be punctually paid ; " and there has 
been rare occasion for complaint that it was not 
so. The envelope system of collections was first 
adopted in 1874 ; and after various trials, weekly 
offerings have been taken since 1893. Denom- 
inational benevolences have not been neglected ; 
and, in addition to frequent donations for casual 
objects of need, $4330.79 have been contributed 
to the American Unitarian Association from 
1859 to 1900. 



94 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

At the beginning of its history, as we have 
seen, this church was the extreme western out- 
post of organized Uriitarianism in America*. It 
has belonged successively to the Western Uni- 
tarian Conference, the- Lake Erie Conference, 
the Ohio Conference, and the Conference of 
the Middle States and Canada, thus steadily 
moving, as it were, from what was relatively the 
extreme West to what is relatively the extreme 
East ; and frequent meetings of the several 
conferences have been held here. 1 The church 
has never been, and from its environment is 
hardly likely to become, one of the greater and 
stronger Unitarian churches of the country ; 
but, conspicuous in its earlier history, it has, 
since the establishing of the Theological School 
here in 1844, occupied a unique position among 
the churches of the denomination, and has 
had an importance out of all proportion to its 
numerical size ; while its ministers have had, 
in their relation to the theological students, an 
unparalleled opportunity for usefulness. In its 

1 The Western Conference met here June 27, 1864, and June 
19, 1872 ; the Lake Erie Conference, December 11, 1866 (when 
it was organized), and June 17, 1868; the Ohio Conference, 
June 8, 1880 (its first session); and the Middle States Confer- 
ence, June 12, 1894. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH 95 

local relations, the history of the church has 
been one with the history of religious toleration 
at Meadville. We have traced the progress of 
a movement in which controversy has played a. 
frequent part. These episodes have not been 
pleasant to recall, but they have been signifi- 
cant as marking stages in an evolution. The 
stage has at length been reached when the nar- 
rower bigotry of the older day, on either side, 
appears to have become obsolete in our com* 
munity; and when Christian brethren, though 
of differing convictions, can yet dwell together 
and work together in unity of spirit and pur- 
pose, and in the bond of peace. 

The history of the church during this long 
period has been one singularly broken by fre- 
quent changes in its ministry, and by the fre- 
quent and long intervals between the different 
ministers; and yet the church has also been 
singularly fortunate in having such able assist- 
ance during these intervals that the altar flame 
has never once flickered or been suffered to die 
down, — fortunate, too, above all, in a harmony 
of spirit that has never once been destroyed by 
a quarrel or division or serious unpleasantness. 
I said at the outset that our church's history 



96 HISTORICAL SKETCH 

had not been rich in dramatic events, nor in 
phenomenal successes. But, upon the maturer 
reflection that we can give after having followed 
it through, may we not say, after all, that having 
begun amid such conditions, struggled against 
such opposition, and persevered to such a se- 
rene and vigorous age, the whole sum of this 
church's life has been a success which need not 
shrink from comparison with that of any other, 
whether great or small ? The book of its his- 
tory is still open, and the moving finger writes 
daily. Let the memories of the past be an in- 
spiration to us by the grace of God to press 
forward to a still more worthy future. 



JUN121902 

1 COPY DEL. TOCAT.DIV. 
JUN. 13 1902 



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